Progress Thread: Interior Restoration

mlara1129

mlara1129

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What's up guys? Been meaning to start this thread for a while, but only recently got some time to work on the interior of my LS, which is in desperate need of some attention.

Hope I can get some help/tips from you guys as I go along.

1) I will start by dying my carpet.
2) Paint/wrap plastic silver pieces.
3) Restore/ re-color my leather or if the opportunity presents itself, replace with "new" seats. (Will be a couple of months at least before i start on this)


STEP 1: Dying carpet
- Started the process today. Removed all the seats. Vacuumed and washed the crap out of the carpet. Ran out of daylight today but ill make sure to take plenty of before and after pics.
-This is what I will be using:
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I went with smoke gray which will be darker than what i have now, but thats the look i'm going for; hopefully this will hide stains better then the current color. Carpet looks like crap at the moment...you'll see tomorrow.

STEP 2: Paint/ Wrap Silver plastic pieces
- Not sure which way i'll be going with this yet, so i'm hoping you guys can help.
- Ordered a couple of sample pieces (4"x8")of "silver carbon fiber wrap" of ebay for like $3.

My sorry first attempt at wrapping:
-looks like balls i know, but at least you get the idea. It was hard as hell to get the wrap around all those curves and I only had 2 small sample pieces so i couldn't do it in one piece. Obviously if i decide to go this route i will re-do this.
3ea8ef7f.jpg

Stock color vs silver carbon fiber wrap
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98bb89ba.jpg


Thoughts on this? should i pursue the wrapping route, or just paint it like 02v8sport did?

Reference thread:
http://www.lincolnvscadillac.com/showthread.php?t=41187
 
I'm just gonna order new pieces for mine. Paint will come off I would think. A wrap that matches the oem wood would be nice.
 
I like where your going with the wrapped shifter area. I think that could be really cool, but you might want to try again :p

And the paint should stick just fine as long as you use plastic specific paint like that Rustoleum Plastic spray paint. Stuff works great for plastic chairs and such, should work well for this too I would think (worked at a hardware store for a LONG time, learned a LOT).
 
I like it. I am curious to see how the color comes out on the carpet. I personally like the carbon fiber wrap. But if you are planning to do a little of it it would look a bit cheesy. Then again I am an all or nothing guy. :D
 
I did the carbon wrap, it looked great at first but one it started getting hot out it bubbled. I am not sure if it was the product I used was junk or what. I preped the surface using wax and grease remover like you do before painting so I am not sure why

carbon1.jpg


carbon2.jpg


carbon 3.jpg
 
Just to share some ideas i have to restore my interior as well.

with the vinyl wrap you can use spray glue and then wrap it while using a hair dryer to give it shape, makes it a lot easier. you can pinch the bubble with a needle to get the air out and after that just use a warm wet cloth to smooth it out.

I want to paint and restore my interior too, maybe ill try the SEM COLOR COAT vinyl & leather paint
http://www.levineautoparts.com/semvinandpla.html
keep us updated
 
I like the idea of carpet dyeing, thats a neat process. As far as the carbon fiber wrap goes..I tend to think its a bit tacky. A solid color vinyl wrap would be cool, if your up for the challenge, otherwise just paint the pieces.
 
Update

Finished the front and it looks great, but i'm starting to think i should have just went with black. Unfortunately ran out of dye because i wanted it pretty dark, so I'll have to wait for my order of 2 more 4-OZ bottles of dye to do the rear. Just as 02V8Sport recommended in his thread, if you want to do this process, go with 4 bottles. Here's the link to the dye:
http://www.autodetailingwarehouse.com/carpet-dyes-liquid-carpet-dye.html

Pictures:


Before
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After: It doesn't look completely even in the pics but its because of the lighting, and it was also still wet, very even and stock looking in person.
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I thought the vids captured it better, sorry for the loud music...you can tell i'm latino lol
th_a1747ab4.jpg

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Wait so you didn't even remove it?


Also did you look into carpet spray paint?
 
Kudos on the carpeting dye job, looks much better and turned out great ... latino music, not so much !

LOL
 
That looks much better Mlara!

What were you doing in that thing to make the floors so dirty? lol
 
how do you apply the dye? I am going to order this for my car but want to make sure I have the equipment needed before hand
 
also my carpet is not too bad, do you think 2 bottles would be enough, as I also will not be changing color, just redyeing the color I have.
 
Andrizzle said:
Wait so you didn't even remove it?


Also did you look into carpet spray paint?
Click to expand...
What do you mean? The whole carpet? No, it wasn't necessary for this.

I have looked into carpet spray paint in the past, and would not recommend it. I tried it on my mats, and they they looked like crap. It says its "flexible" or some BS like that on the can but i got a rough/hard surface and i you could hear it crack a little in the winter when trying to clean them. Thats why I like this process, its not like paint, its as if you were spraying a mist of water on the carpet, and it leaves the texture of the carpet as it was once it dries.

Hernandez said:
Nice result, do you have any plans on your cracked seats?
Click to expand...
Thanks, totally worth the time and about $20ish in materials. As far as the seats, yes i do have plans for them. Eventually i want to restore them myself, or worst case scenario pick up T-money's seats :).

Many companies on the web offer restoration kits. I've done my homework and found some reputable ones. Once the time comes i will be ordering from them.

BigRigLS said:
Kudos on the carpeting dye job, looks much better and turned out great ... latino music, not so much !

LOL
Click to expand...
Thanks dude, and of course you wont like the music if you can't understand it :p

Ben's LS said:
That looks much better Mlara!

What were you doing in that thing to make the floors so dirty? lol
Click to expand...
Lol thanks dude. And i know you guys wont believe me, but we bought the car in 07 with the carpet like that. I'm sure i've added some of the mess but most was already there, and i know why.

Turns out my car was a "fleet car" at some point in its life, so i think that means it was a rental? and you know people don't take care of rentals.

Fully loaded LS, when it was almost new...great rental.

2002_lincolnLS said:
how do you apply the dye? I am going to order this for my car but want to make sure I have the equipment needed before hand
Click to expand...
Its very easy, and you won't need more than a couple of things. For the dying process you will need: Obviously the dye, 32 OZ spray bottle, a scrub brush, and maybe some painters tape if you want to be super careful. Thats it. Other things may include some rags to wipe off the over spray, but thats really it.

As far as cleaning it, i'm sure you can figure it out, but you want it to be as clean as possible.

2002_lincolnLS said:
also my carpet is not too bad, do you think 2 bottles would be enough, as I also will not be changing color, just redyeing the color I have.
Click to expand...
In that case i think you will be fine with 2 bottles. I could have done the whole car with 2, but unlike you I did want a darker gray. So I think you'll be fine.

If its not enough just order more. Removing the seats is really not necessary, so worst case scenario if you run out, just do the rest at a later time.
 
On my way out at the moment, but i guess ill do a quick write-up about what i did and my experience with it later on tonight. Thanks dudes.
 
Sick! Great outcome. I will definitely be doing this to mine.
 
thank you, it said sprayed on, and i was thinking like I have to use one of my hvlp's no way. I would be buying a new one for this, but if a spray bottle will do the trick, I have plenty of those.

Sweet I will be doing this soon.
 
Decided against wrapping...

and took the easy way out with spray paint. Literally took about 20 minutes and I got good results IMO.

Pretty good match:
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Before:
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After:
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Lighting is different...day time for the befores and night time for the afters so they might seem a bit off, but they match pretty good to the stock silver, in person.
 
Looks great! That interior is gonna be squeaky clean I can see it already
 
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