I figured I would try sprucing up the interior in the beater a little. The interior was light saddle but after 47 years it had faded to what can only be described as a rancid meat gray. And typically, everything faded unevenly. To make matters worse, someone put a dark green seat in it. Looks horrible. I wanted to see what I could do with sprucing it up for under $50. In looking at the Sem chip chart for their color coat line of vinyl dyes, I noticed they had a color called "Palomino". I picked up can to experiment a little. I pulled the saddle headrests out of the car and ran a little test. The first thing I did was scrub them with Westley's bleche white. A little unconventional, but very effective. Really cleaned them up good and got all the ground in dirt out of the grain. The color on the underside of the headrests were near perfect from being shielded from the sunlight. This is a comparison of the trim panel from under the headrest to the topside color- The sides were even worse- So after drying them off, I wiped them down with some Sem vinyl dye cleaner and prep and gave them a few coats. As you can see, the color is a dead on match. They look a 1000 times better. And another picture. Im impressed. They look like I just recovered them. Not bad for a $12 investment and a 1/2 hour of my time. I can wait to tackle the front seat now. Might even do the armrests and other items.
Wow...I would have never guessed the results would be so good. Thanks for sharing! I hope you update us on how it wears... Also, seems like a great option if you find a rare piece in another color and need to match it with your existing interior.
Jason if you keep fixing things its not going to be a beater anymore and you'll have to find garage space for it. That kind of defeats the purpose of having a beater doesn't it??
I get days off once in a while!! Why take sick days off when your sick? If your sick, you might as well go to work and get paid for it!
The thought had crossed my mind Brett. Like Tom said, I don't want to make it look too good, its supposed to be a rat
Well, you can be comfortable while driving around, though. I mean, the exterior would still fall in that category.
I took apart the green bench seat yesterday and got both seat back cushions, the armrest and the part of the bottom before I ran out of paint. I'll post up some pics tomorrow. Definitely looks better than the green!
I was able to grab some more paint on the way home and after some very creative masking I finished up the seat bottom after work. Its still a ripped up front seat, but at least its not green anymore! Its back in the car. Tomorrow the seat backs go in so stay tuned for some pics of the finished product. All in all it took 4+ cans to do the headrests, armrest, seat backs and bottom cushion. Its not perfect, but it looks 1000 times better than it did.
And finally, a before and after. I went to Kmart and got a bath towel in an almost exact match for the drivers side. I'd rather sit on a towel than that ripped up vinyl.
I still have almost a full can left over too. Those door panels and armrests are screaming for some love....
