completed on 5/1/2001

For four months dust has gathered on the "story without end" of my own Imperial restoration, and a number of people have reminded me that another installment is due. So back to the computer keyboard to bring the story up to date. Since the upholsterer in a nearby town was overloaded with work, as he normally is, the big box of upholstery material from America stayed at home with me until January 2001. No matter – at last I had the precious stuff on the shelf, or rather on the floor. Before the new carpet went down, protection against moisture and chill was needed, so first a sheet of polyethylene, and over that a layer of special (and expensive!) insulation sold by the roll. Cut, try, cut some more, try, trim again. Same procedure to fit the carpet. Now for the kick-panels – hardboard covered with vinyl. Gary Goers, the American upholstery maker, supplied the backing boards, more or less shaped to fit. I added to them a little decoration that isn’t original but I think should have been: one aluminum striped plate with a pair of encircling moldings, like the trim along the lower edge of the doors. To hide the turn-signal relay and its many wires I made a special box and covered it with the same vinyl. The trunk or luggage compartment got similar treatment with Goers-furnished carpet. I still have to put the trunk side panels.

Early January brings bargains, so I scouted the automotive hi-fi stores for a hell-raising sound system. (Not really that bad, but there is something devilish about a good two-fisted, brass-knuckled boombox!) Lots of watts, but they’ve got to be hidden. It’s out of the question to have a loudspeaker in sight, or cut a hole in a door panel! After thinking a lot about it and measuring, I arrived at a satisfactory solution – A radio plus CD player of high quality with remote control, so the original radio in the dashboard won’t be disturbed. It will have a powerful amplifier and enough speakers. I’ll buy the radio later (the kind I want wasn’t on sale) but I couldn’t pass by a 50%-off price on a four-channel amplifier (two at 100 watts, two others at 200 watts).
The matter of speaker placement remained. There had to be pairs of them in front and back. Why not behind the back seat? A robust X-brace there would anchor things, and there was plenty of unused space. Of course high frequencies will be somewhat damped by the seat, but in compensation there will be another pair of speakers up front, hidden by the dashboard, facing downward.

So this is the sound layout:
– in front, a pair of three-way speakers of 5-inch diameter;
– in back, on the wooden base where the amplifier is fastened, a 10-inch subwoofer that can take 400 watts of monaural signal, plus a pair of three-way speakers 7 inches in diameter. That makes 13 loudspeaker voices in all. The system is installed and wired. A thick cable to power the amplifier comes direct from the battery (through a 30-amp circuit breaker – you never know…). A trial with the latest Madonna record (I’m not one of her big fans, but the disc has super-powerful bass on it) was quite satisfactory. As to a location for the new radio receiver, I have an idea..

The original speaker has been replaced with an inexpensive equivalent, attached to the original "Electro-touch" 9-tube radio, which works perfectly, but in AM only. They didn’t offer FM in ’57!

Unforeseen obstacles: when I remount the two wide plastic moldings that dress the bottom of the windshield, nearly an inch remains between the trim and the windshield weatherstrip. In fact, the new rubber doesn’t come nearly so far back into the passenger compartment, so the plastic trim doesn’t do its work of concealment. Through the gap you can see the pale green of the body paint, and that’s bad. How about a filler strip covered with matching vinyl like the one that runs down the length of the door opening . A length of plastic tubing of 10 mm, or about an inch, diameter (big, but a perfect fit) became the supporting member. Coated with adhesive, covered with dark green vinyl and pressed into place, it did the job.

Other pics (click to enlarge)

Trunk with its new "clothes"	See-through brake fluid reservoir	floor with carpet	Kick panel
comparison ...	Hell-raisin' sound !	Sound system behind back seat, seen from rear	Making a bead strip to hide a seam