1963 Corvette Interior Installation

In this post, we begin with a 1963 Corvette interior installation process.  We assembled multiple components for the interior and installed various weather stripping. Restoration and installation of the front parking lights and the hood release cable were also conducted.

Here is the rear section of carpet that covers part of the wheel wells.

1963 Corvette Interior Installation

According to the manual there were specific pieces of black fiber board stitched into this portion of the carpet to provide support over a small cavity that belonged to one of the body mount captive nuts in it.  We have some of the correct fiber board at the shop so we stitched a piece into the carpet.

Here is the 1963 Corvette horn relay after we disassembled it for cleaning and re-plating.

Here is the horn relay reassembled after restoration.

1963 Corvette Interior Installation

All the interior trim pieces after paint.

1963 Corvette Interior Installation

Interior vinyl installed in the rear of the corvette.

The driver side window track was dented when somebody decided to use a pair of pliers to crimp down on the window glass.  We were able to track down a new track, but it was for a convertible (notice the difference in the mounting brackets, the top one is what came out of our car).  We drilled the spot welds that held the brackets on, then swapped it over to the replacement channel.

The front door jamb seal installed.

The auxiliary seal installed on the door.  Notice the excessive amount  weather strip adhesive applied just like the factory.

1963 Corvette Interior Installation

The door weather stripping installed.

1963 Corvette Interior Installation

The hood release handle installed.

The hood release cable installed.

The hood release cross-over cable installed.

The horns (freshly rebuilt) installed.

We routed and clipped in the rest of the front wire harness.

The front emblem installed.

Here is a before and after shot of the front marker light pigtails.  We changed out the media in out blast cabinet with walnut shells.  This media does a great job of cleaning without being to aggressive.  We used it to blast these pigtails and you can see the great results.

We had bought new front marker light assemblies, but as you can see the replacement is different from the original that was in the car. The original is on the right.

The marker light installed.

1963 Corvette Interior Installation

Here is both lights installed.

Here is the pigtail installed in the car.  Notice down in the right there is a retainer that holds the light in.  It was painted black when we removed it from the car, but the manual claims it should be zinc, so we plated it.

1963 Corvette Interior Installation

The side mirror installed.

We started working on the glove box, this is the liner.  We tried to clean it and paint it to restore it but it was in too bad of shape so we will have to get a replacement one.  Hopefully the replacements are reasonably correct.

Here is the mounting for the glove box.  We blasted and painted all the pieces.

Here is the wiper reservoir installed.

The carpet installed in the car.

All of the center console has been installed.

The floor vents installed.


Here is your NOS ashtray that we were able to find and purchase.

Here is the ashtray installed.

The glove box installed.  We had to repair the glove box light wire as some one had cut it.

Having the glove box installed really finishes out the look of the dash. This appears to be a fully original door, however the door has cracks in it.  We looked at replacement doors but they are quite expensive and we don’t know how they will fare in judging.  We’ll see what kind of condition points we’ll lose before we consider getting a replacement.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,