Topic: Firewall Pad restoration

[PraireBronze]

Any tips or suggestions for restoring a firewall pad?

I bought a pretty good condition firewall bad for my 65 off of ebay a couple years ago.  As I recall, it's all there (been packed away for awhile), but needs some tears fixed.

[67gtasanjose]

It really depends on the condition of your pad. For duplicating or patching the vinyl-like surface, the right stuff for the job is made by Permatex and it is called "The Right Stuff"

I patched together a 67 San Jose Pad using a reproduction pad for a new jute backing, "skinned" the original San Jose style "dimpled" black skin from off of the old jute. Repaired the "skin" using fiberglass mesh on the back side with a clear vinyl adhesive bought at O'Reilleys for a bonding agent and finally applied "The Right Stuff" over the seams of the repairs. A few repairs required waiting for the first application of The Right Stuff to cure. It took a great deal of time and patience but it came out pretty good in my opinion and what I began with was more or less a throw-away, rodent urine-soaked piece of trash.

Hope this helps

[OldMustangGuy]

There are a couple of good threads over on the SAAC Forum on this. My 68 GT350 had a pretty bad pad...I didn't use "The Right Stuff" (but that's a good idea)... I used "Shoo Goo" instead to fill cracks, tears, etc.  To bring the surface back to life, I cleaned it with lacquer thinner (go light...you don't want it to soak in) and then sprayed it with a couple rattle can coats of the "Plastic-Dip" rubberized coating. It came out looking great. Others have also suggested rattle can bed liner although one would want to make sure you didn't use the texturized kind if you go that route

[J_Speegle]

Any tips or suggestions for restoring a firewall pad?

I bought a pretty good condition firewall bad for my 65 off of ebay a couple years ago.  As I recall, it's all there (been packed away for awhile), but needs some tears fixed.

Depends on what pad (inside texture differed depending on plant and year). Some have a pattern that is difficult to reproduce while others have a finish that is random much like an application of sound deadener.  The later is allot easier to patch and to hide the patch as you can feather or simply recoat the whole face of the pad after repair

[Bossbill]

While at the box store I ended up with another $100 worth of different paint types in order to get the correct effect on certain parts.

The Dearborn/New Jersey firewall pad front looks a lot like a product that I just bought and tested today called Rust-oleum Leak Seal -- a rubber product. This is only a very light , first coat of product application. I can add more on request.

Here is Jeff's pic of the Dearborn/NJ pad:


The attachment shows the Rust-oleum product.

[jswoody]

It really depends on the condition of your pad. For duplicating or patching the vinyl-like surface, the right stuff for the job is made by Permatex and it is called "The Right Stuff"

I patched together a 67 San Jose Pad using a reproduction pad for a new jute backing, "skinned" the original San Jose style "dimpled" black skin from off of the old jute. Repaired the "skin" using fiberglass mess on the back side with a clear vinyl adhesive bought at O'Reilleys for a bonding agent and finally applied "The Right Stuff" over the seams of the repairs. A few repairs required waiting for the first application of The Right Stuff to cure. It took a great deal of time and patience but it came out pretty good in my opinion and what I began with was more or less a throw-away, rodent urine-soaked piece of trash.

Hope this helps

I am in the process of restoring a 1967 San Jose firewall pad and have been using this as a guide. Two questions would be is it necessary to remove all traces of the old jute backing, and what to use to attach the new jute to the old skin?  I have experimented with some spray adhesives and have thought about contact cement, but was wondering if there were any better options?

[67gtasanjose]

 

I am in the process of restoring a 1967 San Jose firewall pad and have been using this as a guide. Two questions would be is it necessary to remove all traces of the old jute backing, and what to use to attach the new jute to the old skin?  I have experimented with some spray adhesives and have thought about contact cement, but was wondering if there were any better options?

When I did my 67, I did pull all of the old jute backing off. It was difficult to not cause more damage to the vinyl surface you were trying to save. As far as adhesives go, I used 3M spray adhesive. I sprayed the jute and also sprayed the vinyl. The vinyl was completely repaired before I tried to do this meaning that all tears rips and holes were repaired previous to trying to attach it.

[Bossbill]

I was at my son's house today trying to find stuff I could use on my projects. Ok, we were really there to help clean up for his surprise birthday party. Shhhh.

Since he is into early Broncos I scouted around a few hulks he had laying around. I was very surprised to find one car with its firewall pad just laying there, still under cover of the dash.
Imagine my surprise to find out two things -- it had San Jose pimples and it was also made by the vendor "G_B". This is the same vendor that made the 67 SJ Mustang pad.

So, I took it home.

If you're looking for SJ pad pieces consider other Fords made in SJ in that time frame.

[correct grammar]

[67gtasanjose]

It really depends on the condition of your pad. For duplicating or patching the vinyl-like surface, the right stuff for the job is made by Permatex and it is called "The Right Stuff"

I patched together a 67 San Jose Pad using a reproduction pad for a new jute backing, "skinned" the original San Jose style "dimpled" black skin from off of the old jute. Repaired the "skin" using fiberglass mesh on the back side with a clear vinyl adhesive bought at O'Reilleys for a bonding agent and finally applied "The Right Stuff" over the seams of the repairs. A few repairs required waiting for the first application of The Right Stuff to cure. It took a great deal of time and patience but it came out pretty good in my opinion and what I began with was more or less a throw-away, rodent urine-soaked piece of trash.

Hope this helps

I just read what I wrote here earlier and saw a couple of flaws. First was an "auto-correct" issue with the word "mesh" had been changed to "mess" and I didn't catch that till now.

More importantly, I see a valuable step hasn't yet been mentioned in this thread and I looked at another thread I had begun about using "The Right Stuff", the step was not clearly outlined there as well. http://www.concoursmustang.com/forum/index.php?topic=11069.msg66219#msg66219

The step I am talking about is the "skin", once removed from the old jute backing, gets all of the rips and tears repaired using the fiberglass mesh and clear vinyl adhesive , yes...BUT YOU DO NOT USE "THE RIGHT STUFF" UNTIL THE SKIN IS RE-ATTACHED TO THE JUTE BACKING (At least I didn't). I used "The Right Stuff" only as a filler agent, like Bondo is used to fill dents. It wasn't used for connecting the "skin" structurally-speaking.

Also note: Using "The Right Stuff" as a filler to bridge the repairs together was trickey and it had to cure overnight between coats.

I like that idea that was mentioned about using "Spray Platic Dip" coating too, that may be help for a final coat but I wonder if it has too much luster

[PraireBronze]

clear vinyl adhesive bought at O'Reilleys

using fiberglass mesh on the back side with a clear vinyl adhesive bought at O'Reilleys for a bonding agent

Can someone provide info on specific product(s)?

Also, I am still in need of a piece of SJ pad to fill in the clutch rod notch that is missing.

[67gtasanjose]

Can someone provide info on specific product(s)?

Also, I am still in need of a piece of SJ pad to fill in the clutch rod notch that is missing.

I have been working tirelessly on repairing my original pad (previously pictured in earlier comment)
Today, I feel I have made marked progress on the section to the Left of the steering Column. I will be uploading more images of the other side as I get further along with those repairs. THIS particular task has not been very simple to do. It really is unfortunate that the aftermarkets fail so miserably.

What I have done so far is I have removed the outer "skin" of my San Jose firewall pad and I have also purchased a "cheapie" firewall pad to obtain a rough-cut of the jute backing to use. I used a vinyl repair adhesive by Permatex (#81786) and fiberglass cloth as reinforcement for the repairs. (one repair pictured below) Scraping down the "skin" without damaging it more is the hardest part of this process. I feel the mouse urine soaked jute backing was not what I wished to have inside of my restoration project yet I wanted an original-looking firewall pad. I suggest mechanics gloves and at least a dust mask! (nasty!)

I could use ideas on what to use to fill in the cracks or holes behind the washer pump. I have some ideas, but curious if others have things used proven good. For example, I sectioned in the V-shaped end under the steering column. I used some paintable undercoating on the visable seam but noticed it still a bit "tacky" to the touch several days later. It looks good though, but will it dry?

Here are the pictures of the LEFT section to illustrate the process I followed so far:

The whole thread, as I initially tried to OBTAIN a good SJ pad is in the 1967-1968 section: http://www.concoursmustang.com/forum/index.php?topic=9343.0

Most of what you might ask is over there in that thread or the one I linked above in my last reply.

If I were to do this over again and again wished to replace the Jute backing, as I did before...I would most likely spend more, buy a pre-formed pad...that caused extra trouble trying to "stretch" the jute into reaching the backs of the pockets (behind heater or AC unit).

[Bossbill]

Also, I am still in need of a piece of SJ pad to fill in the clutch rod notch that is missing.

Send me a closeup of that area and I'll take apart a section of a damaged pad I have. Some pads have really faint dimples in certain areas and have strong dimples in other areas. I'll try and match yours.

PM or email.

[Bossbill]

If I were to do this over again and again wished to replace the Jute backing, as I did before...I would most likely spend more, buy a pre-formed pad...that caused extra trouble trying to "stretch" the jute into reaching the backs of the pockets (behind heater or AC unit).

I have a 67 repop pad and this pad, besides being a very bad repop, stinks really, really bad. A horrible chemical smell. I can only imagine what nasty EPA banned items are in this thing.
I'd rather put a moldy pad in there than any parts of this thing (I'll try and see who the vendor was, but it's a bottom of price pad).
The pad isn't even half the thickness of a real pad.

On originals it should be noted that most of the edges (other than clutch and A/C popout type areas) also have various amounts of the face 'rubber' on them. Think paint overspray on some of the edges  and you're close.