BC

Hey all,

The leather dashes in the early cars are great if trhey ever stayed in one piece.

I have an 81 that has leather in suprisingly good condition physically, except for the separation at t he dash vents at the base of the windshield. Everywhere else is very well preserved but a bit discolored.

I was thinking I could recolor everything the original blue, or maybe black, or just have it recovered by just dashes in vinyl -
but the issues are thus:

* The door armrests, center console, and side of the dash is, as I mentioned, in good condition.

* The interior is dark blue on a light blue car, and may look wierd if recolored anything else but blue or black.
I have a problem redoing the whole thing is the only problem is the desh vent area.

* The vent area is simply shrunken from the vent area, and not actually ripped, though I believe it cannot be stretched again.

* The seats, rear center area, and carpet could all use recoloring or replacing, respectivelly, so if I change the color, I would feel the need to redo it all, and I am ALREADY doing this on my 89, which actually had a perfect interior, it was just tan *ugh* (no offense)


I suppose this is a really long winded way of asking if I could just buy a replacment hide all stiched already for the dash and put it on, and then recolor all the leather pieces. The seats could use the same treatment, but I am unsure on them. My wife keeps on bringing up words like "character" and "personality" - meaning "you have spent enough on your car, don't touch mine!"

FINAL POINT - The desh POD, IMHO looks wholefully mismatched on this car in its original black, when most other surfaces are blue. This makes changing the dash color, and then in reaction, the center console and armrests more palatable.

BC

Can recoloring even be done on pieces like the center console and armrests?

Kaz

Brendan take a look at phat928's site. I think he might've recolored a great deal of his interior and it looks to have come out well.

BC

Righto Kaz.

I have spoke with George a few times. He is always very helpful and informative. He used Just dashes, I believe, and had all his pieces redone.

You know me - always checking the files.

Brendan

Tony

Hey Brendan
I recently finished changing the color on my interior as well. The last step was redyeing the rear console, seats, and side trim on the doors. My original color was light grey which made it easy for the new color, graphite grey, to go over.
I was amazed at how the dye worked! Took a bit of prep work but well worth it. I used <a href="http://www.colorplus.com" target="_blank">www.colorplus.com</a> I sent a sample off to them, they matched it PERFECTLY. I used my old Badger 350 Airbrush from my plastic model days. Im still amazed how it turned out.

Ive been tossing and turning on wether to do the center conosle, dash, pod, and rest of the interior the same color via the same process....just like George Youngs car (the driving inspiration behind my work)
I just dont have the nerve yet to try it. Im going to give my redyed parts sometime for a durability test and to see how well they look later. Parts like the dash are obviously Black and in my case vinyl. I know the dye will cover over vinyl...its the dark color im worried about. I may try it just on my driverside door handle (not the latch...the part you use to pull the door close. Its black, vinyl and would see nearly every day abuse. If that works i may go ahead with the project at some point. Pilars, head liner, sun shades, rear deck trim etc etc...all grey.
I like the look of the cars with the color match interiors...espicially the all grey GTS's.

Anyway, I was very happy with colorplus.
BTW..i used there FLEXFILL with very good results on fixing scratches and cuts on my leather parts.

this is the rear AC console..before after



what i used


What it looks like now (note that in this pic the side panels and rear hadnt been dyed yet..but you get the idea) Would look sweet all grey IMHO!




This is what i would like to do with the black dash, pod, center console, and door pannels.

<img src="graemlins/beerchug.gif" border="0" alt="[cheers]" />

BC

Very nice Tony. You always detailed in your proceedures.

I actually have a similar game plan on my 89S4.

More on that later...

With the 81 Dash, etc, its kind of wierd. The dash, center console, rear non-ac-non-storage bin area, door *handle" and vent area on the door are leather.
The window ledge area on the doors, the panel insert on the doors, and the rear panels are VINYL.

Because of this, these parts are all different colors. Some are a light blue, and some are a dark blue. The vinyl has a marble texture, whereas the leather has a lighter blue, and has discolored to a red tinge in some areas.
Let me show a pic:

Above you can see the dash area and its shrinkage. That curved area by the seam is actually discolored as well, and looks reddish just faintly.
As you can see, the seats could use redoing as well, possible recovering because of some cracks.

Here, above, you can see not so well that I have circled a few areas. The larger circle indicates where the vinyl on the door is, and the smaller circle is where the leather is. These two areas are blue, but different shades. Kinda crappy looking really. If it was somehow contrasting, then great, but this same color contrast is a Double-Plus ungood thing in "1984" speak...



Here above you see what I mean by the reddish tinge to the leather. It has also lightened over the years, whereas the vinyl has held up remarkably.
As you can see, the passenger side seat is losing its shape more than the driver side, and both (as well as the rear area) could use some restitching and redying.

Hopefully we can see these. Let me check.

BC

Okat, that worked. Very good. So, now that everyone has seen that, and suggestions?

An option, as I mentioned is to simply remove the leather and have just dashes to everything in one color, probably black or a very light blue. Or maybe a nice silver grey. I like all black interiors, or blue grey interiors.

But the leather was an original thing, and I am trying to continue with originality.

Anybody else BTDT other than Tony the Industrialist?

I gotta go do some work, more on my 89 later.

BC

For the 89, however, I just am replacing anything that was tan. Carpet, Inserts, and door bottoms.

I will be using leather hopefully, and wanted to update the look with a nice grey-silver-blue idea on the carpet and leather inserts on the doors. I will also be replacing the bottom-of-the-door carpet with the leather or vinyl that I use for the inserts.

I am unsureon what I will do with my cobra seats that Ihave installed.

I have also removed all of the rear seat area, down tothe metal, and will carpet that area.

Anyway....

figgen

Hey Brendan

Couple Of things I noticed. I have the same problem as you. Navy Blue interior with the leather pulling away from the dash centre vents. I haven't tackled them yet (working out the mechanical bugs first). My first thought is to pull the dash during winter time and send it to someone knowledgeable in these things, hopefully local.

I see what you mean about the black pod. Mine is navy blue like the rest of the car- -although vinyl-(and the steering wheel leather same as the dash). Maybe someone was already in there replacing things. On the door panel you show - where the top circle is- I have 2 speakers Mid and small which I belive are factory. I don't see them on yours so someone may have been in there as well..

Sorry not much help but I'm watching this thread for tips as well.

BC

On the speaker issue Figgen, I am pretty sure that yours may be an option of some sort. I have those speaker locations on my 89, but not on my 81, shown above. These internal speakers that I have are what I see quite often....

With the dash stuff, I don't like the mismatch, but I am not sure if, since this is my wife's car, if she will go along with spending the 2k to have everything recovered in vinyl, or even the cost of a new dash at all.

I hate doing things on the cheep, but this dash thing, and a crack in the driver's fender are the only glaring issues on this 22 year old car! I see great worth in fixing these issues somehow.

I guess the question needs to be asked how hard it would be to pull the dash and simply restitch that one piece on, while stretching the main part ot fit it, and then redying all the leather on the car black or blue. Then redying the vinyl to match or contrast well.

Tony - how muchy are one of those air brushes?

Tony

The airbrush is about 50 bucks. I have a Badger 350. I think it must be well over 10yrs old now. Worked fine though! It would have been nice to have a brush with a wider spray pattern, makes coverage of the dye easier. I have a compressor as well which is nice....dont want to deal with the little air canisters they sell with it!

just search badger or airbrushes in a search engine. Or go to yout local hobby store. Im not a pro but airbrushing does take a bit of practice!

<a href="http://h1070271.hobbyshopnow.com/products/mfgpage.asp?page=BAD&cat=FTA&PageNum=2&NumPerPage=15" target="_blank">http://h1070271.hobbyshopnow.com/products/mfgpage.asp?page=BAD&cat=FTA&PageNum=2&NumPerPage=15</a> <img src="graemlins/drink.gif" border="0" alt="[cherrsagai]" />

BC

Practice Tony? You mean I have to test my skill son something not in plain sight?

Can you go through the prep work, or is it on your site?

Thanks,