January 21, 2014

A Touch Of Refinement

I decided to (temporarily) add a bit of creature comfort back into the gutted interior.


Years ago I located a really clean '94 SL2 in a salvage yard while scrounging up some parts for a prior Daily Junky. The car was a well optioned plum metallic example with a gray interior. If I remember correctly, its life on the road had been cut relatively short by a grenaded transaxle which (overlooking the mechanical failure) left everything in shockingly good shape, especially for a New England car. I took advantage of the opportunity to pull a few extra things for my own '94, including the inner front door panels. After sitting on them for reasons I cannot remember, it was time to dig them out and drop them in place. Several years of being shuffled between less-than-ideal hiding places had left them in need of a major cleaning. Each panel was fully disassembled to ensure that no spot was left untouched. Pictured above are the panels after detailing and prior to reassembly.


Since I was going all out with the door panels I had to give the interior door handles a similarly thorough treatment. These were among the few items that were reinstalled after the rest of the interior went; kept for the novelty of functioning power door locks or the ability to open the doors from inside the car. The lock switches were removed from the handle assemblies and separated from the lock shrouds for the ease of detailing.



For the finishing touch I decided to replace the philips head screws that secure the interior door pulls. After fiddling around in the fastener bins at a local hardware store, I was able to determine the compatibility of number 10 sheet metal screws with the factory clip-on speed nuts. With this information in hand I turned to McMaster-Carr for stainless steel screws (90356A291) and washers (96765A125) finished in black oxide.


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