The upholstery on the doors of the Volvo was coming off. I mean litteraly disintegrating. The layer of foam between the door panel and the upholstery turned into sticky orange gunk. That needed to be replaced. We removed the door panels, the old upholstery, most of the gunk and replaced it with cowhide I picked up at a local home decor shop. We are team Fred & Wilma after all 🙂

Let the pictures speak for themselves:

As mentioned earlier, the previous owner had a fender bender. Literally. The front bumper of the car is made out of Tupperware with some metal in it for strength. The plastic part didn’t break. It just bent and bent back afterwards. The shape seemed a bit distorted though, but I figured that was because the metal it was mounted to was bent. The picture shows the metal part with the plastic cover still attached to it.

Replacing the bumper turned out to be more work than expected. Before I could access the bolts that mount the bumper to the chassis of the car I had to remove a cover underneath the car, fixed with quite a number of screws and plastic rivets. On the other hand, getting the metal separated from the plastic was easier than expected. The new bumper turned out to be about 5mm too wide, but that was quickly fixed with an angle grinder.

Unfortunately, the plastic part is still a bit distorted, so it doesn’t completely fit the new metal piece. At least not on the right-hand side of the vehicle. Maybe I can fix that by applying some heat, but that’s something for another day.

Just a quick update on the “getting rid of the rust” project. The sills are welded and I replaced one of the wings. I left the welding to a professional by the way. I can stick two pieces of metal together with a welder, but that’s not the same thing 🙂

I decided to replace the front wing with a brand new one. Various manufacturers sell new wings dirt cheap (for like € 40) so it makes no sense to try to repair the old one nor to get one at the local scrapyard. I did have to spray paint it in the right color.

The only thing left to do before it will pass the next inspection is replacing the front bumper (the previous owner had a fender bender) and adjusting the headlights.

Click on the images for a larger view.