Benton

I figure a lot of folks are bypassing the "Out with the Corvette, in with a 928!" thread, so I wanted to post a thread with some photos of the interior restoration I have been doing on an '86.5 soon to be owned by Jon B. I bought the car from FL over the summer and have been restoring it off-and-on since then. The sport seats are sitting on a shelf at the shop, as they were not original to the car. The covers were absolutely toast... they actually look better in photos than they did in person. Much more has been repaired aside from the interior, so check out the aforementioned thread for more info.

Rear quarters and door panels were replaced with vinyl examples (didn't shrink and warp the panels over time like the leather ones had done--original rear quarters were toast), crap aftermarket stereo and all wiring removed, rewired for a clean, simple Alpine HU with Alpine 6.5s in the quarters and small coaxials in the doors. Center console repaired, tape holder repaired and redyed, better glove box door installed, factory steering wheel repaired and redyed, low-mile comfort seats redyed, replaced all broken and worn switches with low-mile examples, replaced DS window motor and regulator, all window tint removed, new rear view mirror, some new rear A/C vents, and Jon is having Mr. Champagne sew up an Alcantara shift **** for it--the shift **** was broken because someone decided to make a "short shifter" by cutting the top off of the original shift rod, and the **** wouldn't slide all the way down. There's more I'm sure I left out. I am letting Jon repair the dash and pod, but once he gets around to that, it is going to be one killer interior! Enjoy...

Tom in Austin

Wow, great before and after!

Jon B.

Great, now I've got TWO threads to check!

Loving the work Mark!

Calibre26

Mark,

Any specific reason you went back to the factory steering wheel? Did you not like the Momo 3?

Jeremy

Randy V

Very nice but what happened to the sport seats?

Jadz928

Damn.. that's nice!

Jon B.

Jeremy, the Momo wheel didn't really go with the interior very well, and as you can see the stock wheel that is in the car is in VERY nice shape. Mark may still have it available if you are interested in it though.

Ryan, the sport seats were in a really bad way, and they were not original to the car. We were trying to get the interior as well as the car as a whole back to the way it should have been. The sport seats would be nice, but they would have needed complete restoration to be as nice as the ones that are in the car now.

Benton

Jeremy,

I got rid of the Momo and hub combo before Jon inquired about purchasing the car. My goal from the beginning was to make the car as attractive as possible to any potential buyers. Therefore, the Momo had to go. Regardless of my personal opinion on it, having an aftermarket wheel in there, such as this, alienates a certain amount of potential buyers. I figured if the purchaser wanted to, he could install an aftermarket wheel.

About the sport seats, I wish I would have taken some better pictures of them before I removed the covers. The covers were worse than 200,000+ mile cars I have had in here. There were several splits in the actual leather (not the dye like most seat cracks). Some of the cracks had been repaired with epoxy of all things. I actually just purchased some new leather covers for them (foam is still excellent), and I will be selling them separately once I find the time to install the new covers.

Thanks for the compliments!

Calibre26

Thanks, Mark (& Jon) ...

I was asking because I am considering replacing my factory wheel with a Momo. My factory wheel is in good shape, but I like the idea of updating the interior look a bit.

Thanks again ...

Jeremy

BPG_Austin

Wow, those pictures represent a LOT of work.. Nice job Mark. is this car going to find its way to Austin? That would be awesome!

Jon B.

It WILL be back in Austin once I make my way back there. For now it'll be living in North Carolina.

pcar928fan

I keep hoping Jon will drive it home to visit at some point! If/when that happens, I'd like to get ALL the Guards Red/Black 928S's in town together for a photo shoot! Including Jon's there are like SIX of them or maybe even more...that is just that I KNOW about too!

kccampro

Looks Great!

dcrasta

Hey Mark,

Great pictures, great work. What advice can you offer for removing the inner rear panels? I have searched and tried following the instructions I have read but there seems to be something holding the panel on around the window frame and I dont want to break them like I break everything else on this car..

Thanks (again, great pics!)

Benton

dcrasta - There are several round clips (same type that hold in the door cards, door panels, and other parts) that run along the top edge of the panel. Feel around to locate where exactly the clip is and pry downward with a thin screwdriver or something. If anything breaks with this method (usually nothing), then it will be the clip instead of the panel. Just try to localize the pressure at the clip instead of pulling on the panel.

PS, thanks to Donnie (griffinroydonald) for helping me out on this project. He actually pulled the rear quarters out.