Interior
My entire interior as been "Dyno" matted, although I did not use Dyno mat itself because it is way to expensive. I used an industrial acoustic dampening mat which is pretty inexpensive - less than $100 for the whole car. By whole car I mean floor boards under new carpet, doors, rear side panels, under hatchback & the cover. The car is very quite (almost no road noise) & stereo sounds awesome !!
6x9's mounted in lower front portion of the doors, using a 1/2" mounting plate they fit very well & the big hollow doors do good double duty as boxes.
Passenger side front door speaker.
Another pair of 6x9's on the sides of the back seat. The panels were removed & underneath was matted - they also sound very nice.
Here is the main amp, it sits under the passenger seat. It is a 4 channel amp so each of the 4 6x9's has it's own channel. When I went to run the 8 gauge power cord I noticed a bunch of rust flakes on my amp so I removed the seat.....
As you can see, 22 years - 5 of which were barn storage took it's toll on the seat. As with any other rust I find - It MUST be eliminated !!! hee hee
See she's starting to look pretty under there.
Now a nice coat of Rustoleum "Hammered", I really like the way this paint coats - as if it's not obvious, about half the car has it on it now. I sanded the whole underbody & sprayed it with this, then spray a rubberized undercoating.
Custom Bass box built by club member Aaron - Pioneer 10's with Lanzar amp.
Steering issues:
Due to the fact I used a later style cradle for extra strength, my 81 steering rack would not work. I used a new rack that bolted straight into the cradle & hooked directly to the PS pump.
Seen here is the steering rack on the cradle right before installing into the car.
The problem came after the cradle was installed & most everything hooked up to the motor. I went to connect the steering column to the rack & realized they were not compatible. This was not one of my happiest moments.... The 81 steering column end is slightly larger & has splines like a CV shaft. So I now needed to sort out a different column. The 82 & up steering columns are virtually the same besides the splines & the connecting knuckle difference. The later style is a smooth oval with a flat side, it also has a spring adjustment in the shaft. It is possible to switch just the connecting knuckles, but my tilt was busted so I decided to go with a newer steering column.
I got an 83 steering column from club member Jeremiah. The 83 column had tilt & cruise, but no intermittent wipers, and it was dark brown where my interior is black. My 81 column had the intermittent wipers but no cruise. So I opened both columns & Frankensteined the bastard !! The intermittent wipers have a different mechanism inside the column & the wire harness has 2 additional wires. I put the intermittent mechanism & wire harness into the 83 column & used a new control lever that had everything on it. So now I have tilt, cruise, and intermittent wipers... YEAH !!
** If you aren't good with puzzles, I highly recommend you don't open your steering column!!**
The next step was to paint it black so it will match my interior. I used Krylon Semi flat black & it came out real nice.
Top view. One thing about the 83 column was that it was a column shift, as all are that I could find beings the only Citation non column shifts where X-11's. After removing the column shifter & painting, it's barely noticeable.
The "new" column going in....
Sits in nicely.