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That is interesting how the sun visors disintegrated but yet the headliner was ok. My armrests are still soft and pliable, I just had to really clean them due to the years of elbows and forearms constantly touching them. They were pretty dark and black. I used a gentle mixture of Dawn soap and warm water and just gently rubbed them with a lint free cloth until the red started to appear. My headliner and sun visors are perfect in this car thankfully. The STE...not so much. The California desert pretty much baked it's interior. I'm SO THANKFUL that the International has such a nice interior. It's part of the reason why it's a 1 of 1 car. I'm actually restoring the front seats in it right now. The side bolster on the driver's seat is worn out. I'll post pics soon. I have all the hard pieces figured out and collected on the STE. It will be pricey though but I'll do a little at a time. The rear seat headrests and upper top portion of the seat will need to be reupholstered. The front seats are in great condition and just need to be deep cleaned. Same goes for the carpet. Got a new dash pad and found some really nice door panels with perfect door panels. I posted in my thread about all these parts being found. The biggest win was finding a perfect set of door speaker grills and the lenses for the door lamps. Took me years to find those! The original door armrests and the ones I pulled from a junkyard STE...again, not sticky or gooey at all. Pliable and very nice with no cracking or discoloration. I really lucked out there.

The tint definitely would have helped prevent the interior from fading by blocking a lot of the UV rays. But the melting issue is definitely a new one for me when it comes to a 1st gen W. Can’t say I’ve ever seen that happen before….but perhaps the time has come for some of these issues to show up. With the way that car has been treated, I’d expect to have heard other reports of this happening over the years on cars down south years ago if it was common. This is what’s making me think this is more of a chemical reaction and/or a natural breakdown that’s occurring that can’t be stopped with tint or climate controlled storage. Slightly different situation, but my old 88 Regal used different headliner material on the sunvisors than on the headliner itself. The material used on the sunvisors was the same one used on the earlier 80s GMs that was very prone to sagging. By 13 years old, the sunvisors were sagged and the foam material was completely broken down and rotted out. The actual headliner was perfectly fine though, and the foam backing was still holding up well when I scrapped it around 2008.

I really want this car to be as factory correct as I can. That's primarily why I want to go back to a more original look with the clear. Plus, my bud who's a Police Officer keeps hounding me about it, LOL. Definitely not legal for the door glass.

It's very possible, tint does block most UV. That tint looks awesome! I can't get over that you don't like it. I personally hate clear windows in everything. I mean, I really hate it, maybe more than you hate fake DRL headlights. I've seen some people get 35-50% tint and I'm even like, "what's the point?" Getting my Fleetwood tinted is the first thing I'd like to do to it. 35% is legal limit here, but I'm planning to take the risk on 20% like I did on the 94 convertible. I'd meant to take my 89 back to get the front windows done, but never got around to it. Probably should have, if it's indeed UV causing it, but it could very well be a combination of temperature and age as well. The dash vinyl, for some reason, has held up fine. I drove screws into it to un-warp it about 30-years ago, and it's stayed un-warped this whole time. They do make clear tint just to block UV. I was thinking to have that done on the Fleetwood's windshield. It does have a slightly bluish color to it, though. I don't think tint hurts the factory look. Lots of car ads portray them with tinted windows because it looks so much better.

My International sat outside for a good part of it's life. But, the original owner had the windows tinted and even though I don't like it, it saved it's red interior. My armrests aren't gooey yet or breaking down from what I can tell. Maybe the tint helped with this? If I drive it to work, I also put the windshield screen up primarily to protect my repaired non warped dash pad. I'd like to someday have the tint removed and then just have the clear UV protected tint added. I want a factory look but with the added UV protection.

I think a lot of cars have this issue. The Lexus ES generation after mine is notorious for the dashboards (and often the door cards) turning into a sticky, crumbling mess. My generation had issues with the passenger dash air bag shrinking and warping, greatly widening the otherwise tight gap between the bag and the rest of the dash. Here's an example, though this isn't even as bad as they eventually get. I didn't learn about this until I finally starting to find a few in the junkyards where I noticed almost all of the dashes were like above or worse, and then noticed the top gap in mine ever so slightly getting wider. I started using a sunshade as soon as I noticed it, and knock on wood, it hasn't gotten any worse since. Still sucks because the rest of the interior is damn near mint.

In all honesty….I don’t believe there is anything you could have done to prevent it. I believe the issue has more to do with the chemical composition of the material and its natural breakdown more than anything else. Likely some combination of the dyes and materials used, cleaning products and skin oils over the years that caused it. If you look at cars that have spent their entire lives in climate controlled storage, you can find some where the headliners have failed in the same manner and in similar time frames as those were exposed to the elements. The foam backing failed mainly due to time, rather than environmental conditions. I experienced something like this a number of years back at work. I was routing and securing cables using a pack of coloured cable ties. The pack was older, but unopened and was stored indoors. They all worked as intended, except for the green ones. Every single one would break apart with the slightest amount of tension applied. The translucent ones and the other colours were all fine. A few years later, we started seeing broken RJ45 jacks….but only the green ones again. Didn’t matter if the jacks were hidden all their lives or exposed to the sun and completely yellowed out….only the green jacks were prone to breaking with very little effort. It had nothing to do with them being green, but something about that particular colour led to them breaking down differently than the others.

I appreciate it, it's a dupli-color can special too. One day I would love to be able to 3d print these or mill them from an aluminum block.

By the way, the paint looks really excellent.

Thank You Needed a win, its been awhile.

wow! that thing was packed full of junk no wonder.

Thanks for posting an update! Now I know why newer cars have a cabin air filter! I wonder how bad mine is.

Thanks for the options but did not need it. since I have a recovery machine with R134a it was not a big deal to open the system and refill it. Yes it was previously converted. after recovering the system I removed the one bolt under the hood holding the lines to the evaporator. Also I removed the clamps for the heater hoses at the firewall. Making sure a pan is under where you remove the heater hoses so not to spill it on the ground. under the dash at the floor I removed both left and right kick panels and gave access to where the bottom of the heater box is. I removed the silver trim around the cluster and radio, unbolted the center stack with that vent, climate control, and pocket. Behind that is another carpeted pocket unbolted that which gave me access to the heater box.. Removed the first panel that direct the floor air flow. There seems to be some pipe that goes into the floor under the carpet no idea where it goes since the back doesn’t have air vents or under the seats lol removing that panel I can see the heater core two or 7 mm. This car seems to be made with 7 mm screw screws.LOL . I was able to pull the heater core to the left and that gave me access to the evaporator. Remove the two screws on the bottom and I was able to pull the evaporator into the car and let me tell you I’ve attached a picture of what it looks like before cleaning it and after cleaning it after reinstalling everything and putting a new O-ring on the AC lines, putting a vacuum on the system and allowing my machine to refill the system with the correct amountthe airflow out of my vents was like a new car and my AC finally blows ice cold. All in all I was only left with 27 mm screws. I have no idea where they’re from but everything is nice and tight and working great. Now I know this isn’t a tutorial with instructions step-by-step but this is just what I had to go through since I couldn’t find any information and didn’t wanna wait for my service manual to come in which yes I did order on eBay. i’ve attached a few pictures before and after. I did do a little bit more cleaning after the clean picture I’ve attached. It looks like a brand new unit now. I hope in the future if somebody has to go through this and doesn’t understand what I’ve typed then can always reach out to me with questions.

Looks fantastic! You did good!

All that work and I ended up dropping and breaking that vent awhile back. Thanks to an extremely generous member here I have a replacement vent. I keep the pair inside packed in a box so I can`t break them without effort. Had an idea and went with it in securing the drip pans and screens. Using some things I had on hand I came up with some brackets that can be removed easily for cleaning or paint. I don't know if it helped or not, but I also used a small wire brush to clean out the posts and put a few drops of silicone lube in them before barely snugging up the mounting screws. Everything holds tight and secure when the hood is open and closed and looks good from the top, underneath maybe different but each side is mirrored to the other to the 1/16" with the exact same parts. It could look better with fabbed up metal stock instead, but the idea works and can be covered with some insulation in the future. It really doesnt look half bad with just the screens and pans, and Ive not even painted those yet. Seems like it could match the front grilles...

Thank you, and yea it doesn’t appear so! Was one of the biggest selling points!

Nice, thanks for that!

Oh ok I see the wheel in the channel now. That makes things a little simpler. But after looking into it a little more I’ve encountered another problem. One of the black guides for the glass is broken. Can these parts still be found or am I SOL?

18x8 +42 with 5mm spacer = +37. Needed spacers to clear the front calipers, and I didn't want the rear to look more tucked than the front, so I put spacers on the rear just to match. Your tires would stick out 7mm more than mine if you go for 245-wide.

I've done this on an '88, you don't have to remove the glass. Just put something over the window frame and tape the glass up. The lift arm has a wheel that rolls horizontally in a channel. Once you've got the regulator loose, you can move the lift arm far enough to the side that the wheel will come out of the channel and the regulator will be completely loose in the door. Monte looks a little different. https://charm.li/Chevrolet/1995/Monte Carlo V6-204 3.4L DOHC VIN X SFI/Repair and Diagnosis/Windows and Glass/Windows/Window Regulator/Service and Repair/Window Regulator/Regulator/

Discoloration never even occurred to me. I don't think it's discoloring in the Cutlass yet. Yeah, I strongly suspect heat also plays a big part. It's been garaged over 24-years, thought it did spend ~10 hours a day during the Spring/Summer/Fall out in full sun for 19 of those years. It was 100% outdoors for 8+ years before that. I don't know if that's enough cumulative UV to cause this kind of vinyl decomposition. My garage does get really hot in the summer though. About 10-degrees over ambient, 15-20 if I've driven any of the cars, as the hot engine makes the garage even hotter. I've seen rubber belts in VCRs and cassette decks literally turn to black goo when stored in a hot garage, and that kind of equipment almost never sees sunlight. Seriously thinking maybe I need to install a mini split in my garage.

That's impressive for a MI car. It must have not have been driven in the winter.

I've never seen those not on a Buick/Oldsmobile. I assume it was a way to get a softer ride for the "luxury" brand cars

Interesting. I think it's an early W body thing and dependent on whether it's a sedan, coupe, or convertible, (Cutlass line of course). I think the newer cars maybe starting in 94 on...again, depending on body style, they just got a combination of those items. 55trucker would know I bet.

Yes, those figure 8 shaped springs cushioning the lateral links. My `94 3100 CS only has these aux. springs while my `95 LQ1 Vert and TGP only have a rear sway bar. I thought it was one or the other and the two parts were not installed together. They must help "soften" the handling in the back in a way to give a smoother feel, at least thats the impression I feel when driving the `94 CS and TGP.