Biohazard
All of the seats are out. I have never done upholstery work before so I am experiencing fear and anxiety. I will take pictures to help with getting it all back together correctly and I will either buy pre-made repro covers and buns or solicit a local upholstery shop (more fear and anxiety) but the bottom line is this: All that foam rubber, jute, and burlap creates a wonderful harbor for mold so it has to go.
I suppose I'll start with the rear seat.
In that last pic you can see sheets of plastic in the background. That is all of the other seat sections sitting on the lower back porch slab and wrapped up so nobody has to smell them. (our house has a walk-out basement)
I pulled about 80 hog rings removing the jute and the vinyl cover. I wanted to immediately toss the jute strip that goes around the upper part of the frame but Mopar Muscle's DIY suggested keeping it to use as a template for the replacement padding so I bagged it. (Need to find some 'biohazard' stickers for these bags, lol.)
With the frame stripped of all the soft stuff, I sprayed it with a cleanser, let it soak, and rinsed it with a pressure washer. After letting it dry thoroughly in the sun, I completely coated it with the plant-based oil, blotted up the excess and added it to the parts stockpile.
I'll need to get some minor weld-work done with the seat bottom frame. It secures to the floor by two drilled stips of metal affixed at the back of the frame. One of those tabs had broken away from the frame and was still screwed into the floor. That tab will need to be tacked back on.
There is also a weld that has failed at the back left corner of the frame that will need a quick tack but, an easy fix.
So far, pulling the carpet and seating and the subsequent floor scrubbing has had the single biggest impact on the mold smell (duh). My estimate is that the odor dropped from a 10 to an 8. It is still pretty rotten in there and after working on anything to do with the interior, I have to strip in the garage and head straight for the shower. Clothes then get laundered in an anti-mold solution. Yeah, its that bad.
All of the seats are out. I have never done upholstery work before so I am experiencing fear and anxiety. I will take pictures to help with getting it all back together correctly and I will either buy pre-made repro covers and buns or solicit a local upholstery shop (more fear and anxiety) but the bottom line is this: All that foam rubber, jute, and burlap creates a wonderful harbor for mold so it has to go.
I suppose I'll start with the rear seat.
In that last pic you can see sheets of plastic in the background. That is all of the other seat sections sitting on the lower back porch slab and wrapped up so nobody has to smell them. (our house has a walk-out basement)
I pulled about 80 hog rings removing the jute and the vinyl cover. I wanted to immediately toss the jute strip that goes around the upper part of the frame but Mopar Muscle's DIY suggested keeping it to use as a template for the replacement padding so I bagged it. (Need to find some 'biohazard' stickers for these bags, lol.)
With the frame stripped of all the soft stuff, I sprayed it with a cleanser, let it soak, and rinsed it with a pressure washer. After letting it dry thoroughly in the sun, I completely coated it with the plant-based oil, blotted up the excess and added it to the parts stockpile.
I'll need to get some minor weld-work done with the seat bottom frame. It secures to the floor by two drilled stips of metal affixed at the back of the frame. One of those tabs had broken away from the frame and was still screwed into the floor. That tab will need to be tacked back on.
There is also a weld that has failed at the back left corner of the frame that will need a quick tack but, an easy fix.
So far, pulling the carpet and seating and the subsequent floor scrubbing has had the single biggest impact on the mold smell (duh). My estimate is that the odor dropped from a 10 to an 8. It is still pretty rotten in there and after working on anything to do with the interior, I have to strip in the garage and head straight for the shower. Clothes then get laundered in an anti-mold solution. Yeah, its that bad.