That's a beautiful Riviera Resto-mod. They call it "Vanquish" and was built by Cruzer Customs (I think it was a SEMA build). Lots of detail on that one (and a boat load of work). Detroit Speed also built a 65' Resto-Mod Riviera but much more subdued with a lot of small details that most would not pick up on unless you watched their video (or are a Riviera nut!).
I agree with Crash on the engine. The LS thing is cool and it's nice that they go the extra mile to make it look like a Buick Nailhead....however, the Nailhead is a huge part of these cars. It's a shame to take them out (IMO). I get it...but the more I've worked on this car over the years, the more and more I come to believe this is one of few cars that damn near reached the pinnacle of automotive design (for the record, they go on my list with the 69' Z28 Camaro and 57' Chevy Bel Air). It seems like the more you try to modify these cars, the more it takes away from the original design genius that went into them.....but yes; opinions are like a$$-holes....everyone's got one.....including me......I might even have two!
Still playing catch up here. Up next; the dash pad.
The vinyl was completely shot; dry-rotted, crack and falling apart (which is usual for these cars). These are steel frames with foam formed in-place and then vacuumed covered with vinyl. Started off by carefully removing the vinyl with heat....and one small piece at a time.....in order to salvage the foam underneath......tedious.
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Once It was all removed, I taped off the foam and blasted the metal. After that, gave it a couple of wet coat of SPI epoxy including the foam in order to seal it and stabilize/ glue together the porous foam on the surface.
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The foam was actually in good shape considering how old it is and how bad the vinyl was. The original foam had some voids in it and some pulled out when I was removing the vinyl. In order to wrap this in leather, it has to be a good, flat foundation or it will all telegraph through and look like crap. Again, I didn't want to add any padding to level it out since it will take away from the original look of the interior. I was going for subtle with the leather on this car.
So a big thanks to Jim Kueneman for the next step. I used the method he posted on the Valiant dashboard using the pourable foam. I built a tape-dam around the edges and poured a 4 oz. two-part urethane foam over the top. Truth be told, I first started experimenting with a 14 oz. foam to duplicate the same density that the dash is made from......not a good idea. You cannot shape that foam easily since it is very soft and pliable. I actually had to grind it out of a few spots I tested it on in order to get it out.
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As Jim noted, you can grind this down pretty quickly with a 60 grit disk but it's like trying to shape a rice cake...it goes way too fast and you have to be careful or it will disappear before your eyes. I opted to go at it by hand with a cheese grater file. More work but it worked nicely as you really couldn't mess it up. Once you hit the original foam, it just glides across the higher density foam and keeps you from going too far.
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After the heavy stuff was knocked down, I switched to a block with 60-grit paper to finish shape it.
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And while it filled all the heavy stuff and did a great job for vinyl.....leather needed a bit more. I then skim coated it with filler to get the remaining voids that the foam could not fill. Blocked that down again and covered with with 3 -4 wet coats of SPI epoxy to seal it up for good.
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Time for the leather. This was another fun one! Between the tapers and transitions on the side and the wrap around the front edge, this got interesting. Lots of steam and patience to get this to land right.
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And then back in the car to finish off the dash. Again; darn near design perfection on this car!
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