This long New Years weekend, I completed installation of the new firewall pad.
Alfred has been helpful with suggestions but I learned quite a bit as I went along.
The car is a 1969 Tunis Beige, Euro version, LHD.
The previous firewall covering was not a pad. It was like the material used to waterproof the inside of a door…thin, black material with no padding…probably on the car for 5 or 10 years.
The old, nasty covering was glued to the firewall with a black tar-like substance that was extremely difficult to remove…even after multiple application of adhesive remover and many hours of scraping, the surface was left fairly smooth but not really clean. The original pad is the first photo, the ugly left over “tar” is in the second photo.
3M Adhesive Remover (product number 03618 or 3618) was used to remove the old covering and adhesive. The remover did the job fairly well but hands got full of black scrapings and bits of tar. Plastic gloves helped keep off some of the black stuff.
The installation of the new pad was done with all hoses, etc. attached so the new pad had to be cut to fit over the three small cables coming through the wall on the driver side…and cut to get past the hose on the left side. Had to extend the thin pre-cut slot for the small bracket near the hood locking mechanism. The pre-cut slot did not allow the pad to get close enough to the top of the firewall until the slot was extended down.
The car is a Euro model with a Firewall Data Plate…had to cut the hole for the Plate. This hole is pre-cut into the fiber pad but is not cut into the top pad. My Data Plate was wider than the pre-cut hole which had to be widened in both the top and bottom pads. It was a bit of a chore to cut the fiber pad as its fibers seem to lean away from the razor blade…took extra effort to get clean cuts.
To install the new pad, I wanted to use a brush on for better application control. I considered using Contact Adhesive by DAP. I called DAP and asked if “bonds upon contact” means no “work time” to move the pad. DAP said that contact was instant and suggested I call 3M
3M said the job seemed similar to gluing a pad to the bottom side of a hood. 3M recommend a non-contact adhesive with about 5 minutes working time. The product as 3M Super Trim Adhesive, product 08090 or 8089. It is sold in auto parts stores, not houseware or hardware stores.
The 3M product is sprayed on, not brushed on. This meant taping hoses and areas near the firewall to keep the spray off the unwanted places. A photo shows the taping.
The 3M adhesive allows a few minutes of movement. I positioned the pad as well as I could, bending down and around the hoses and other fittings, making minor corrections as I want along…working carefully but quickly. When it was in position and looked OK, I used a 3 inch flat meat pounder to press the pad to the body and avoid bulges.
I’m satisfied with the way it came out. While the new pad might not be up to concours standards, it looks a lot better than what was on the car before as you can see from the last photo. I hope you agree that the effort justified the several weekends of work.
And thanks again to Alfred and the others for making this possible.
Richard M NYC
