My weekend interior swap (lots of pics)

[techboy]

I've been debating for years about what to do about my interior.  I've gotten multiple quotes to have it reupholstered, none of which I really wanted to spend.  Early in the summer I found a deal on eBay I couldn't pass for an entire straight-line cloth interior.

So, this weekend it was time to pull out the current interior.

Time to start pulling stuff out.  Started with the front seats and door cards.

The front passenger kick panel is a little tricky.  You have to open the glove box to gain access to the screw that holds it in place.

Moved on to the back seat and side bolsters.

Door trims out, center console to go.

Just the carpet to go. If you've never removed one of these before you need to pry up and "release" this little clips that hold the carpet to the sheet metal.

Carefully snake the carpet out.

Everything out.

There she is.

 

 

[techboy]

Time to go back the other way.  Simply reverse the process.  

For this project, I went with a "new" repop carpet, not an OEM one.  I bought it from ACC.  It comes molded, but no cuts - you have to do all that yourself.  Despite all the years of working on cars, I've never done this before, so it was a learn as you go process.

Here's the two side by side.

I started out with 2 things, a knife and a tin snips.

I started by lifting the tan carpet onto the new black one.  As I got going I quickly found out large binder clips really helped to keep things in place for tracing and cutting.

I also quickly discovered a scrap block of wood worked really well as a backer when making cuts.

I just made cuts wherever the tan carpet had them, using it as a template.

This is what I had after working my way all around.

This is what it looked like finished up.

And these are all my trimmings.

You'll also need to reattached the metal rods that the clips hold onto into order to keep the carpet in place.  I tried 3 different methods for attaching these.  #1 - tried stapling them with a staple gun to block of wood, pulling the carpet and then trying to bend the underside of the staple over - very similar to how the factory did it, but the T-50 staples are so thin when I bent them they would snap.  #2 - I tried sewing them in place with black thread.  It would have worked, but it was taking too long and I was impatient.  So #3 won, I simply made slits in the carpet and fed zip-ties through.

In these pics you can see the zip ties holding the rods in place.

The 2 door sills are your major attachment points.  There is a hole in the center of the rear seat area that should have a plastic push pin in it, and otherwise you have to work the carpet up into the foot wells.  I had to trim some additional carpet out to get everything to "sit" the way I wanted it too.

Overall, I don't know that I'd do this again.  It was much more time consuming than I though it was going to be.  Finding a decent OEM carpet would have been much quicker and the fitment obviously would have been perfect.  So, for $200 bucks I'd only do this again if there were no other options.

 

[techboy]

Now for the fun part ... the part I've been waiting for!

My son helped me ... started out by steam cleaning everything.

This is the water after just the back seat.

It was a beautiful day, so we put everything out in the sun to dry.

While he continued to work on that I worked on getting the lap belts back in place.  The ACC carpet comes pre-molded as if you were putting the carpet OVER the belts, when really the lap belts are carpeted already and the main carpet needs to go UNDER.  So, you'll have to do some fancy (and careful) cutting to make it work.

Both sides done.

After that I started by getting the rear bolsters in place.

Then the rear uppers.

Then the rear lower.  I forgot to cut the holes for this, so I had to cut them out quick.

Next I started getting the plastics in place.  Door sills and kick panels.

Next I went to the door cards.

Last but not least ... the best part ... the seats!

All told, it took me 2 solid days of working.  Most of the time was spent on the carpet.  Huge improvement.  My leather was so hard and dry, it feels completely different to drive the car in this soft plushy interior.  Now I just have to get used to it being black instead of tan!

For now, I'm going to store my tan interior b/c I would like to reupholster it someday, but this will work for now.

[TexasQuest]

Great work, the cloth interior is beautiful! 

[nc_beagle]

Following. 

I hope to do some of the same.

[Preludedude]

Firstly, I know that cloth is 1000x more comfortable than that hard leather. 

But, how much time do you actually spend inside of there?  Not much I’d guess. So is comfort really a focus?

But then again, if you were to truly enjoy the car and put miles on it as you should, then you want it to be as pleasant as possible. 
 

I saw that cloth set when it was on eBay for $2500 OBO. I wondered who actually bought it. 
 

Lastly, that tan leather was amazing against that blue car. Nothing could have improved that. Also, considering how uncommon tan interiors are, it was really special.  Only you and Kev have these amazing blue cars with tan interiors. 
 

To end it, get the tan leather recovered one day and revert back. 

[techboy]

22 minutes ago, Preludedude said:

Firstly, I know that cloth is 1000x more comfortable than that hard leather. 

But, how much time do you actually spend inside of there?  Not much I’d guess. So is comfort really a focus?

But then again, if you were to truly enjoy the car and put miles on it as you should, then you want it to be as pleasant as possible. 
 

I saw that cloth set when it was on eBay for $2500 OBO. I wondered who actually bought it. 
 

Lastly, that tan leather was amazing against that blue car. Nothing could have improved that. Also, considering how uncommon tan interiors are, it was really special.  Only you and Kev have these amazing blue cars with tan interiors. 
 

To end it, get the tan leather recovered one day and revert back. 

I really didn't do it for comfortability reasons.  As most of you know on the forum, I show this car A LOT.  And I've gotten a number of comments about the interior.  I know it looks pretty decent in pictures, but in person, it's really a different story with all the split seams and whatnot.  There's actually 3 holes in the passenger seat.   So, to that end, it was really about taking the car to the next level - it's so nice on the outside but the interior I felt was holding it back.

But, as I eluded to, my end goal is still to reupholster the tan and revert back just like you said.  I love the tan on blue look, so for now I'm just going to store it.

And, yeah ... I was the one that got it off eBay.  It's kinda a funny story, but it was actually for sale in NJ on FB - which was one state over for me.  I was going to buy it, but I was away for the weekend and buy the time I got home he sold it to a guy in PR.  Well, the guy in PR changed his mind about it and listed it on eBay.  He listed it for 2500 like you said, but I  was watching the auction and when it got no bids he sent a private offer for $1500.  At that price I jumped on it since  most of the quotes I was getting for reupholstery were more than twice that.

[TexasQuest]

That's a smoking deal for $1500. 

[techboy]

There was one oversight on my part when I got this interior ... 

I could have just painted it black and called it a day, but, I really would like to switch back to the tan someday, so I didn't really want to do that.  Was able to get my hands on a black set.

Had to pull the drivers seat and the door sill again to get to the levers. It's held in by two 10mm with the JIS screw heads.  I have a JIS screwdriver and the one still stripped trying to get it out, so I replaced them with standard 10mm bolt heads.

Was a little bit of work for simple thing, but much better. 😁

[Contsi]

Nice work ….