interior...

[ALTRNTV]

i have a 89 fastback and i want to liven my interior up a bit without having to spend more than like 50 bucks, cant i take out the vinyl inserts on the door and paint them or something, what cheap ways can i do to modify my interior without really buying a replacement part for it..... thanks

[Dousan_PG]

NO! dont paint it! looks HORRIBLE

cheapness looks like crap. save up and do it right.

u want replacement get junkyard oem if its in bad condition, otherwise leave it alone!

[240Degrees]

u don't have the poopoo brown interior, do you? the brown looks soooo gross. thank god mine is black. if its black just leave it, if its brown or blue, id dye it black.

[Zemus]

I painted my center console silver, with black dash, it looks nice,

DONT TRY TO PAINT THE VENTS, i did, and now i need new vents cuz they all broke when i took them off, !!!

[HaLo]

I agree with Dousan36 and 240Degrees:

Keep the stock interior stock, espacially if it's black!! I find the 240sx interior very nice.... I love it! :)

[azn_romeox]

Fabric paint and dye your carpet and roof liner. I did it and I can say its the best. :) looks like new. I think i'm the only one that has dyed there roof liners black. It looks amazing. I will try to take pictures

[Thurazor]

If you are set on painting your plastics, you will want to look for primer and SEM paint. Any other method could result in cracking paint or paint that just wont' stick. Don't be afraid to make your car look different. Heaven forbid someone does something different :rolleyes: Just try to do it tastefully :) color scheme your car.

[SilviaDriver]

painted dash pieces..thats wat honda people do. leave it black trust me ull like it more. but IF you were gonna paint them..i say listen to "Thurazor"..get a color scheme going on..none of that green/purple/red/white/blue crap going on..stick to 2 colors.

[azn_romeox]

I actually am currently doing my center console. Just the panel where the radio and shifter is. I am painting it black with clear coat. My process is long since I am not skilled enough to to know how to paint.
First I sand and put primer
sand with 600 and put another primer
sand with 600
put base coat. Which is black
sand with 600
put base coat
sand 600
put clear and repeat sanding with 2 times
then on 3rd and final time sand with 1200-1600.
And you leave it sanded. It will look hazy. But take your buffer and buy some rubbing compound and take it away. It is equivlent or better to most paint jobs but takes a bitch load of time. I'm talking about a week or so.
This is wet sanding too. My center console is drying right now. And I can say it looks like it was professionally done.

If someone has some ideas on how to paint with cans tell me. I've been having problems with like spots of paint that don't want to stick and leaves holes. So thats why I wet sand so much. Is there a chemical? I mean I clean it with 409 orange power :(

[misnomer]

I wouldn't paint the vinyl on the dash or door panels, I've never seen it look too great. Some folks replace the cloth insert in the door with vinyl of some color scheme they've got going on and it doesn't always look like ass. Other folks paint their vents and the console, and it doesn't always looke like ass there either. Just keep it tasteful and make it make sense. Plan it out.

[azn_romeox]

Oh no I would never paint my console. I ment the small panel where you shift. Like where the a/c radio and shifter is. That panel and the area back. If you have a s13 you know what I mean. When I got my car it was all scatched down there. I would probably have just did a flat paint job but I got bored lol. I needed a bit of shine. Nothing ricey now.

Actually, a guy i talked to painted his s13 panels. Everything with vinyl. It looks incrediable. I've seen tons of pics of his interior while he was doing it. There is a guide to how to paint it. First you need to take the wax and greese etc. etc. His car came out really nice. He painted it sexy black. Reason for it cause his s13 came with a bluish interior. Which i think is kinda gay.

[mrdirty]

Originally posted by azn_romeox
Oh no I would never paint my console. I ment the small panel where you shift. Like where the a/c radio and shifter is. That panel and the area back. If you have a s13 you know what I mean. When I got my car it was all scatched down there. I would probably have just did a flat paint job but I got bored lol. I needed a bit of shine. Nothing ricey now.

Actually, a guy i talked to painted his s13 panels. Everything with vinyl. It looks incrediable. I've seen tons of pics of his interior while he was doing it. There is a guide to how to paint it. First you need to take the wax and greese etc. etc. His car came out really nice. He painted it sexy black. Reason for it cause his s13 came with a bluish interior. Which i think is kinda gay.

let's see those pics...

I vinyled my headliner black and door pockets dark blue (matches steering wheel and shift boot).

Vinyl is easy, and a cheap way to take care of some ugly areas.

[CoasTek240]

dont do it!.. i did it on my old s13i got the intereior plastickote paint.. and i did it right it didnt chip at all .. infact it looked alright too, it did it silver; turned out to look like brused alum dahs kit.. was nice.... but after a whiel things can happen it can chip or fade i sold my car liek 1 month afte ri did it so it still looked aiight kinda ricey in my opinion though... with my new coupe my ccarpet is perfect, but my cloth sets and stuff are in great shape but are really faded. i took out my rear seats so i am planning on taking off the cloth on the glove box and door panels and seats and i'm gonan dye them. well actually my moms friend has a reupholstering busniess and they dye fabric there so shes doing it. i'm get it black... but i'm having second thoughts b/c black might show dirt too easy so i might just go with a dark grey.

[azn_romeox]

Just rip the cloth on the door panels. It will expose the vinyl underneth. It looks way better. Just use goof off to take the rest of the addhesive off. I did it on my 1990 and it looks like the vinyl on the dash. Do it extremely slow. Or else you'll mess it up. I did the passanger side wrong. You dont just rip the carpet off from the back. You rip the tar like material stuck to the back of that carpet then there is the vinyl.

[AmherstSR20DET]

Originally posted by azn_romeox
Just rip the cloth on the door panels. It will expose the vinyl underneth. It looks way better. Just use goof off to take the rest of the addhesive off. I did it on my 1990 and it looks like the vinyl on the dash. Do it extremely slow. Or else you'll mess it up. I did the passanger side wrong. You dont just rip the carpet off from the back. You rip the tar like material stuck to the back of that carpet then there is the vinyl.

Do you know if it would be the same process to remove the cloth from the glove box? That's really the only change I wanna make to the interior, aside from a few dress-up bits.

[azn_romeox]

Basicly the same process. Join the 240sxforums.com and go to s13 technical. We had a big discusion on it or search for it. A few members have pictures.

[misnomer]

Am I the only one who thinks vinyl in general looks cheesy and cheap? If it is, I'll shut up :P

[mrdirty]

Originally posted by misnomer
Am I the only one who thinks vinyl in general looks cheesy and cheap? If it is, I'll shut up :P

If it's done properly and in tasteful colors then it looks good, but to each his own.

BTW: Don't paint trim pieces, they always chip after a while and look like a$$, i just spent the weekend stripping my trim pieces. Actually what I did was sanded each piece smooth and then clearcoat/sand/clearcoat/sand/clearcoat until they were smooth as glass...

[RedlineRacer]

Actually, my friend has a BMW, and the enterior was tan and black. He hated the tan and wanted it all black. So we went to Walmart and got a black vinyl paint. We painted all the tan colored pieces then went over it with a few coats of clear coat. It actually turned out very nice. The only thing though is there are a few scratches and you can see the tan color in the scratches.

[Phlip]

Personally:
http://www.zilvia.net/f/showthread.php?s=&threadid=19350
I have these boots, both shifter and e-brake and they look great...
I also painted the plactic pieces around my radio/vents/shift boot. The boots cost me 50.00, paint was about 8 bucks for primer, paint and clearcoat and work was, of course, free...

[Phlip]

Originally posted by misnomer
Am I the only one who thinks vinyl in general looks cheesy and cheap? If it is, I'll shut up :P
The problem with vinyl is that people get it in colors that would be ungodly expensive in leather. The color is what usually lends the "cheap" look to it, but it is compounded when used in a tasteless fashion and the line between tastefully done and cheesy is really thin...

[ALTRNTV]

i just finished painting my door panels royal blue, it actually looks good, sort of like professionally done, i'm so serious, went to NAPA Auto Parts and bought 2 cans each of primer, royal blue enamel, and clearcoat, use one can on each door panel, first primer, then wait 10-20 minutes, then spray on enamel, wait 10-20 minutes, then spray clearcoat, the whole process took about an hour for me, and i must say it does look pretty damn good, haha, and best of all, it doesn't look ricey