Front seats

At a point we decided to use only oldschool Connolly leather for the interior, as it must be the closest to the original hides of the era. This decision has proved itself basically right, but the picture is more detailed now. Due to the old (vegetarian based) tanning method, the leather is uneven in thickness varying from 0.7-1.5mms. It is a bit more rigid than modern leathers, but what makes it really complicated to work with, is the fact, that is can only be stretched a very little bit as anything above the minimal, the color becomes uneven, revealing the natural color of the hide. Quite challenging, but at the end it came out nicely.

Most of the parts of the seat are original. We only made a few changes. The most important being to replace the cardboard backing to an alloy one. Without that step, the back of the seat would not look too impressive. We also kept the original thickness of the foams, just added a bit of padding to bare metal parts.

Parts arrived from 2nd companies

Assembly 2.

Assembly 2.

Unfortunately non-original, was made in 1972.

Installing the headlining is a delicate task. Needs a lot of patience. 

And some "special" tools, like these clamps from the stationers.

And this hot air blower aka hair drier :-).

With the help of this device (thanks to the Best Ever Possible Wife), the worst creases can be smoothened. The rest will disappear with time and  

Gauges

The gauges were original and mechanically sound at the first glance, but obviously had to come apart for refreshment. There is no worst then a giggling speedo or a sticking temp gauge in a nice restored classic.

The voltage stabilizer is a delicate thing. It prevents the temp gauge and the fuel gauge to read faulty due to the varying current in the charging system. Although it is a simple design, it work just as well as a modern electronic device. 

Normally we get our items plated by a company, but such fine and small items as the gauges or the carburetors, we do here in the workshop. 

The speedo gauge internals were badly stucked due to the old grease. We took the mechanics apart as much as possible, but still could not get it cleaned completely, because some parts are riveted and there is no real way for dismantling and reassembling it correctly.  

For these cases we have an ultrasonic cleaner. Normally ten to twenty minutes tend to be enough, but the gauge was so badly stuck, it stayed in the tank for 1.5 hours! Now it works fine.

Stickers have to go back after the plating of course.