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My 1965 Starfire has a complete trunk cardboard set, although in very poor condition.I would like to replace. Fusick does not carry it.Is it within the realm of possibility to be a DIY project?Not sure where to buy that cardboard raw material . Would use the old, poor panels as a pattern.
A craft or a boxing supply store should be able to help you with the thick cardboard needed to help you restore the panels. Of course using the worn ones as templates is a great idea! Painting them would make sure they are relatively protected from humidity ETC. With patience an endeavor as such is entirely possible. This is the fun part of owning one of the large Oldsmobiles. We have to be very crafty (!) at making things work, getting the job done, as we can't point to, and spend in the catalog for every little nut and bolt.
Been there done this: use contractor floor-protective board known as Thermo-Ply to replace the light blue cardboard your car came with. Or at least like mine came with.
It's cheap in 4X8 sheets at a good hardware store (contractor-grade, maybe big box)
The front side is the manufacturer markings, but the backside is light blue and very close to the 1966 Olds light blue that came from the factory.
It also scores and cuts easily with a utility knife, razor, or scissors.
It's thick enough to bolt an amplifier or 2 to if you have them in the trunk, i.e. it's strong.
Also if you don't mind a later-GM look, you can cover it with cheap gray felt and match to your spare tire like I did.
Perhaps these shots will interest you. Have fun! Strong enough to bolt stuff too Not quite factory look, but clean.
I went to go redo the ‘66 Starfire trunk carpet this morning and it got me into a why not redo all the cardboard pieces too.
I was getting frustrated in the heat (95F here) so I took a lunch break and hit the breakthrough: Cut the Thermoply with a jigsaw. Then score with the pieces with x-acto or a razor blade.
I traced out the old shapes and used the jigsaw to faithfully reproduce them. Worked great. The cuts were straighter and cleaner with the jigsaw than anything I did with manual knife cuts.
Here are pictures of the redone '66 Starfire Trunk. It's a bit different from the 98 convertible owing mainly to the fact that the body is different and the spare tire is center mounted under the rear deck, which my convertible doesn't have.
Recovered trunk from '66 Starfire with center mounted spare. The material is more typical of 80's era, but cheap and easy to glue.
I left the center open to accomodate the spare. I've also hidden an amplifier up under the rear deck between 2 6x9"'s so it's great to have easy access. Beneath the carpet I put about 30 lbs of Dynamat sound deadener covering the trunk floor. It will need to be notched to get the rubber mat to sit flat. The carpet-wrapped hinges and diagonal structural pieces are not factory, but I like getting more space back in return for a non-factory look.
The major departure from factory here is that I just wrapped the trunk hinges. The cardboard boxes that Olds built around these in '66 must have reduced trunk space by 15% or more. So I skipped them this time around. It looks more '80's than '60's, but I don't spend that much time contemplating trunk style on the road as long as its clean. Also the factory hinge covers are devilishly hard to reproduce. Loads of angles, weird cuts, and scoring for bends. I may create some cubbies eventually between the hinges and the vertical rear quarter supports. But not soon.
Driver's side of '66 Starfire where the cardboard used to be. The carpet is tight wrapped and glued to the structural pieces with a few pieces of felt covered Thermoply to fill gaps around the 10" woofer
Carpet wrapped around metal structure symmetric to the drivers side, but with Thermoply protecting the body from strikes from inside the trunk. Antenna left exposed as the factory did long ago.
Last time this trunk was done, it wasn't done with much care, just cardboardy stuff wrapped on top of the antenna which cost me some trunk space. It didn't look bad, but wasn't how Olds did it and just wasn't right. I was going for a clean look, max. space (not a problem...) and more factory style solution.
If you've gone this far, here's how I did it. There's probably a better way, but this worked for me.
The key materials are
1) a roll of carpet fabric like this: https://www.yourautotrim.com/darkheather.html
2) 3 4x8 pieces of Thermoply https://www.buildwithbmc.com/bmc/Lum...9/p/TP1848349B
3) 2-3 cans of 3M Super Trim Adhesive (and it's solvent just in case you need to back anything out)
4) A jigsaw + 5-15 #2 Xacto blades, razor blades or other really sharp cutters, plus some sharp scissors to cut carpets
5) A T-square or other long straight edge graduated in inches. Great for cutting straight lines.
6) Headlamp highly recommended as you climb in & out measuring stuff and seeing how it sits.
My approach was cut the outline with a jigsaw. Once you have the basic shape, then where ever I wanted corners, I scored about halfway into the depth of the sheet with an Xacto to allow the material to bend sharply in the right curve line (most of the straight looking lines are actually body line curves). Theres a lot of test fit, notch, adjust, trim. Along the way I cut holes for things like antennas, vacuum lines, and wires. When all the cardboards fit right individually, then test fit the whole side.
If the cardboard looks right then cut and glue the carpet to fit over each new cardboard piece leaving at least 2-3" of extra carpet "flap" to wrap edges and glue tight to the back (not visible) side. The gluing is sort of it's own thing. I glued from the most visible parts of a piece to the least, on the idea that I'd have to see the most visible more often. Also edges are easier to trim & adjust than centers. On the visible parts you want to use less spray glue so it doesn't bleed through. On the edges and invisible "flaps", you can use more for strenght. The rear flaps are particularly important around corners, I left .5" or so just so the corners would sit flat, but also wrap tight.
Ideally you'd use your old pieces as templates and go from there. If you don't have them, job 1 would be measuring and creating new ones with 90 degree angles in the right places. If you're doing this, a lot of pieces that look rectangular are actually tapered or shaped in various ways. With materials you can get a rough cut, then fill in with spare pieces to get the right shape.
If you have old cardboards, just outline them on the thermoply, noting the outline, but also where to score the thermoply for 90 degree bent corner cuts like where the side pieces meet the floor or the underside of the rear fender tops. The shaping cuts will be mostly hidden, the real precision should be appled to your scoring cuts. The scoring cuts are the ones you'll see when you open. There's a 1/4" or so of play in the thermoply so it will interference fit (aka force fit) in the body reducing the need for fasteners if you cut it just a tick too large in the right places.
This all started with a 1 hour project laying down new trunk carpet. But it turned into a 3 day project to make it all look how I'd hoped. Still it was a little creative and pretty fun. Some math, some aesthetics, lots of VOC and 1 beer.
For some cars you can find replacement cardboards on Ebay. Look there and consider your time. My read was the cost of those parts was around $200. But I was impatient and kind of wanted to do it my way.
Hope this helps and you all find this interesting
Cheers
Chris
June 15th, 2019, 07:05 PM
