Rita Leaks!
On the trip to Las Vegas in Novemeber, we were caught in several downpours. We discovered Rita had several major leaks. A couple were from the old windshield gasket, while another, more serious one, was in the roof somewhere. water came in and did extensive damage to the headliner.
During restoration, we chose to not touch the headliner as they are notoriously delicate and no one makes a replacement. We now had no choice, and removed the headliner (carefully), and the roof rack, and went ahead with repainting the roof, and recovering the headliner. It was a good time to replace the old windshield gasket, too. We hoped to reset the old glass, but it cracked, so a new windshield was added to the facelift.
An exact match to the fabric of the headliner was not available, but I located a very close match at SMS Fabric. The same upholstery shop that did the seats also covered the headliner. The roof was painted in Phoenix, and then the car came back home for reassembly.
The first drive with her all back together was around the Sunset Crater loop. These pictures are from that trip.
Rita leaks no more!
During restoration, we chose to not touch the headliner as they are notoriously delicate and no one makes a replacement. We now had no choice, and removed the headliner (carefully), and the roof rack, and went ahead with repainting the roof, and recovering the headliner. It was a good time to replace the old windshield gasket, too. We hoped to reset the old glass, but it cracked, so a new windshield was added to the facelift.
An exact match to the fabric of the headliner was not available, but I located a very close match at SMS Fabric. The same upholstery shop that did the seats also covered the headliner. The roof was painted in Phoenix, and then the car came back home for reassembly.
The first drive with her all back together was around the Sunset Crater loop. These pictures are from that trip.
Rita leaks no more!
