I'm in the middle of converting my boring grey interior black and I want everything to look/feel as nice as possible.

I repainted the vinyl on my door panels, but seeing how the car was originally brought up from Texas, the interior is pretty dried up from the sun. I read abuot people repainting the door panels with vinyl spray, which I tried and it came out looking OK, but I will always know that it was sprayed and the texture doesn't feel like real vinyl/leather.

Has anyone ever reupholstered the door panels opposed to painting?

I was thinking I could just strip off the vinyl mold on the current door panel and just spray down some heavy duty adhesive and apply the vinyl over it. Seems kind of weird, but I've never heard of anyone attempting it.

Don't reccommend an upholstery shop either, there literally aren't any around the area I live in.

After doing some extensive searching, I've decided to take it upon myself to attempt to reupholster my door panels, headliner, trunk lid and the hatch false floor myself. Shouldn't be too difficult, I'll post pictures of the finished product in this here thread in a week or so when supplies come in.

Feel free to share any tips.

Make sure to post an update. I don't plan to do it to my talon but was thing about doing something similar in my accord. I'd be curious about how easy it would be (or hard, what i want to do doesn't have too much curves).

I did mine about a year ago. I replaced the stock gey vinyl with carbon fiber looking black vinyl. Just make sure you strip the old vinvl off and rough sand the plastic so that the adhesive gets a good tooth into it. It also helps to use a hair dryer to heat up the new vinyl so that it can stretch easier and be a ble to be formed into the curve. Good luck.

chefcg1 said:

I did mine about a year ago. I replaced the stock gey vinyl with carbon fiber looking black vinyl. Just make sure you strip the old vinvl off and rough sand the plastic so that the adhesive gets a good tooth into it. It also helps to use a hair dryer to heat up the new vinyl so that it can stretch easier and be a ble to be formed into the curve. Good luck.

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wow, extensive research in just 4 hours... i'm impressed

vinyl is good, pleather is good too, might want to check into suede or microfiber/micro-suede. even sanding, texture coating, and repainting is an option as well

if you do vinyl, get a good heat shrinking vinyl so it lays over the curves nicely.

how do you adhere microsuede to panels

chefcg1 said:

I did mine about a year ago. I replaced the stock gey vinyl with carbon fiber looking black vinyl. Just make sure you strip the old vinvl off and rough sand the plastic so that the adhesive gets a good tooth into it. It also helps to use a hair dryer to heat up the new vinyl so that it can stretch easier and be a ble to be formed into the curve. Good luck.

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Got any pics? What kind of glue/adhesive did you use?

As for the comment about the research, I'm productive, eat shit

BTW http://store.yahoo.com/yourautotrim-store/whisper.html This is that kind of "leather" I've decided to use. Faux leather, basically a grade up from vinyl in terms of texture and quality.

Here's mine, I posted this picture up a while ago but nobody cared (http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=153939&highlight=suede), so here it is again. Since then, I have cut a hole for the stock speaker opening and installed the speaker cover. The material is faux suede from a local fabric shop. I used 3M spray adhesive from a local hardware store. Make sure to buy the one specifically for upholstery. Clean the surface with alcohol before applying the glue. Follow up by spraying both the fabric and the surface with the adhesive and allowing them to set for 10 mintues.

Mr96GSX408 said:

Here's mine, I posted this picture up a while ago but nobody cared (http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=153939&highlight=suede), so here it is again. Since then, I have cut a hole for the stock speaker opening and installed the speaker cover. The material is faux suede from a local fabric shop. I used 3M spray adhesive from a local hardware store. Make sure to buy the one specifically for upholstery. Clean the surface with alcohol before applying the glue. Follow up by spraying both the fabric and the surface with the adhesive and allowing them to set for 10 mintues.

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Although I would have gone with a different fabric, it did come out really well! Good job, I think I remember seeing this posted by a different member.

BTW, if that's your true car color (in your sig), your car is damn sexy!

I redid my doors as well as the area around my hatch. Used 3M Spray adhesive on the entire surface and used hot glue on the back side to ensure the ends dont come loose. Have had it on for 7 months now. Works very well. Use vinyl from joann fabrics. Here are some pictures:

Mr96GSX408 said:

Here's mine, I posted this picture up a while ago but nobody cared... The material is faux suede from a local fabric shop.

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that is beautiful in my opinion. do you know the name brand of that stuff? i've been looking for suede for my interior, and all i'm finding is stuff for approx $45-$85 per yard. OUCH! and the fabric store that has the cheap $5/yd stuff, only has black, and i need some red too. crappy. how much was yours?

thanks in advance!

also...got any more pics of that interior?

Those all look sweet I am planning to do my doors and get rid of the perferated vinal on the seats. I am thinking of using black Nike sphere material I am not sure how it will though.

devlish said:

that is beautiful in my opinion. do you know the name brand of that stuff? i've been looking for suede for my interior, and all i'm finding is stuff for approx $45-$85 per yard. OUCH! and the fabric store that has the cheap $5/yd stuff, only has black, and i need some red too. crappy. how much was yours?

thanks in advance!

also...got any more pics of that interior?

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if you got to jo ann fabrics they have a micro suede and its in different colors. Very nice work you guys, do you think that 3m spray will hold for a long time

how did you get the fitting so percise did you take apart each panel part on the door and do it separetaly (i dont even remember if you can do this so i ask)

Where do you guys get that stuff that looks like carbon fiber? .. im thinking about doing my interior with that in my 1g .. only i think i might wrap the panels themselves .. cause i dont like the way it looks now .. dunno though

Luke

Yea how did you guys get around all the curves? I tried to do the insert with some suede and it just didn't really look that great because of the curves and wrinkles. Does this microsuede stretch? Also can you do the entire door?
=Jason-

It somewhat stretches but not a whole lot, you're just going to have to play with it for a while. The best thing to do is work from the contours out.

here's my door and seat...my seat was so dirty and old, so I had to change entire seat cover (front & rear) and side trim...with leather. it cost me around $200USD..not bad.
What do u guys think?

^^^ are those seat covers very nice if they are

^^^ amkes me wish i had a white car to do that with. that looks really really nice.

silly black cars.....(i think im going to attempt something similar in the tan to match the rest inside..)

More black with white interior pics please

redhyena69 said:

here's my door and seat...my seat was so dirty and old, so I had to change entire seat cover (front & rear) and side trim...with leather. it cost me around $200USD..not bad.
What do u guys think?

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Did you do all the work yourself (reupholster the seats, reupholster the door panel)?

redhyena69 said:

here's my door and seat...my seat was so dirty and old, so I had to change entire seat cover (front & rear) and side trim...with leather. it cost me around $200USD..not bad.
What do u guys think?

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Really liking the colors

No, I just can't do that kind of job myself.

One old guy who had made car seat for 30 years did that for me.

That's what I called work-man ship. He measure the seat for 30 min.

Then, he told me to come next day. I went there next day, everything was ready to be

installed. Installation took about 1hour thou.

I was watching when he was doing door panel, it was esay.

Simply cut the leather and glue them thou.

Anyway, It wasn't that expensive for all leather seat thou.

MaNGiNa24 said:

Did you do all the work yourself (reupholster the seats, reupholster the door panel)?

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I really like the color, too. THANX hehe

Oreo said:

Really liking the colors

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Update:

Just finished recarpeting the rear deck lid.



Also refinished the center arm rest in faux-leather, lil bit of a pain in the ass. Here are before and after shots, all that dirt on those pads were removed with alcohol, be sure to use it well.

Before:



After:



After taking the unit apart I realized that the stock arm rest isn't even vinyl, it's friggen rubber.

And lastly, the headliner. Didn't work out too well the first time due to spraying in cold weather. Wouldn't get tacky enough, so I tried again (sprayed in cold, let dry in warm) and it turned out 100% better. A few imperfections, but all are non visible when installed.




I have to attend school tuesday and thursday, court on wednesday and work friday, sat and sunday, so it'll be a while til i get to the doorpanels, but I'll post the results.

If you couldn't tell I'm going from grey to all black, and I'm literally covering anything I can in vinyl/leather just because I hate cheap plastic and want to make the interior a little classier.