Last night I finished the firewall pad and am very happy with the outcome... Finally. See the first photo.
For the last three days, I have been trying to figure out how to apply glue to the firewall for the Pagoda group firewall pad. To me, it was not apparent how to mask for either brushed contact cement or spray-on adhesive. Finally after not finding anything on the Pagoda site that explained a precise step-by-step procedure, I punted. I used the brown waxed paper that I peeled off the felt pad backing when first received the kit and assembled the felt backing to the pad. I don't discard anything until a job is completely finished. I traced the patterns onto a large sheet of clean newsprint because tape won't stick to the waxed paper.
I glued the newsprint patterns in place on the firewall then proceeded to mask around the patterns and inside the holes. See the second photo. I then removed the newsprint pattern on the passenger side, leaving the masking tape to outline where the contact cement was to go. I used a brush-on gel contact cement because I'm really messy with a rattle can. I put two coats on the felt pad and two coats on the firewall, then peeled off the remaining masking tape. Application of the pad was easy and quick and seemed to work really well.
Encouraged, I removed the Driver's side newsprint pattern, leaving the masking tape outline and did the same two coats of contact cement on the firewall and the felt pad, and removed the remaining masking tape like the other side.
By the time I finished installing the driver's side pad, I started to break into a cold sweat. The third and fourth photos show why. The passenger side, which had been installed almost a hour earlier had begun to do the same thing as is shown in the photos of the driver's side. I was too upset to photograph the passenger side. But I knew what to expect when the driver's side had been installed for about an hour so I waited and photographed it.
The felt was beautifully glued to the firewall but the tar-like pad had separated from the felt.
While waiting for the driver's side to separate as well, I further separated the passenger side firewall pad from its felt backing gently as much as possible and sneaked a brush between the two layers and applied contact cement to both the pad and the backing as well as I could. After twenty minutes, I pressed it in place and it held.
I did the same thing to the driver's side, once it had almost completely separated from the felt backing, and before going to bed was able to see the final result shown in the first photo. Today, it's still holding, so everything is OK. But for a couple of hours yesterday, I was seriously considering cutting my losses, reducing my frustration and selling everything in the garage as a project.
If I had known what this experience would be, I would have glued the felt backing to the pad with contact cement, not depended on the self-stick glue to keep them together. The contact cement works great. Peel and stick didn't, even though I applied it upon receipt of the parts in accordance with the instructions.
Now I just have to clean the border of contact cement off the firewall from around the edges of the pad, where the thin pattern and the thick pad did not coincide after forming the pad over the curved dash. But then again, neither did the pad and the felt backing once they had separated and re-glued.
Nothing is easy when working on this damned car. Oh well, if I want to see a perfectly installed pad, I'll look at a photo of Flyair's.
Tom Kizer
