Changing Sides

My little project is certainly coming together (a munchkin a few states away for a week seems to add a BUNCH of time to one's day).

I began this task having read it worked but somewhat unbelieving....Changing vinyl from black to light cream?  But the results are incredible!  One of the few new items that came in the pile of parts I now call a car were nice new Appbiz door panels (they have a really nice, proprietary backing material).  I must give credit, I spoke to Bob the owner of Appbiz at length before beginning this project as I planned to order my carpet from him, he was the one that identified what I had as a set of his panels.  He was also the one that suggested dying them instead of having me purchase a new set from him (at quite a bit more $) in the color I was changing to.

So I cleaned these things 3 times with liberal amounts of Simple Green, after they dried in the sun I cleaned them again twice with alcohol.  The first picture shows the first coat of SEM Vinyl Dye in "Santa-Fe" which by the chart I'd ordered with actual sprayed swatches matched the color of my Leather/Vinyl.  (Note:  I got the company that did my leather covers to send me 2 yards of matching vinyl, it takes REALLY close inspection to tell them apart...and they don't smell as awesome....but they match very well)

Here, I placed my freshly created rear side panels (more on those in a min) next to the not black anymore door panels for a comparison, not too shabby.








I temporarily hung the door panel on the door and placed my nice new door tops on top just because I couldn't take the suspense anymore.









Rear side panels:

In that same collection of parts I had a lonely, warped to all hell, rear side panel covered in tattered black vinyl.  When I tried to source new rear sides all I found avail looked just like that one and every one of them wanted $100-$150 for the set (which would have had to be recovered or dyed)


.  This spurned a defiant fit of ingenuity [you can read stubborn cheap-ass if you like].  So I went and got some 1/8" masonite, some batting, my handy new power stapler loaded w/ teensy 1/4" staples and my 3m-74 glue I've been using with nice success on the carpeting install.

I took off the black vinyl, found a layer of what I believe to be Camel or Tan vinyl under it, stripped that off, flattened out the sad little core as best I could and traced it out twice on the masonite.  I did make sure to keep the "shiny side" out the back hoping this side has the tiniest bit of moisture resistance and the "fuzzy side" would grip the glued material better.

Then I covered both of these with glued down batting, next came the vinyl.  I started in the middle top and bottom stretching hard and stapling them down.  Then 1 staple on each side in the same way, then I filled in starting in the middles and stretching as I went.  I finished up by gluing the edges outside the staples for just one added bit of finish.

Overall these were really easy and I probably have $50 in the pair of them.





Which leads me to B-Pillar covers:

Please recall what I had done to the back of my lovely German mistress in deference to lack of funds but refusing to be completely ratty.  I'd covered the entire exposed rear from B-pillar to shining B-pillar in black speaker box carpet that did a reasonable job of mimicking what was then on the floor.  To be honest I wasn't entirely sure just what was SUPPOSED to be on those ends until recently when I went asking for pictures from folks w/ less molested 911 Targas.

Well the answer was a strip of vinyl that matched whatever color the side panels were.  So I proceed to tape off the area all around, put a bit of my new favorite cushy material on and cover with fresh new vinyl.  Voila.