My Interior Resto Project (pics)

FISHTAIL

FISHTAIL

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Ok, so here are some before and afters of my car restoring the interior using 50resto's interior dye:

Before:
drivers_door_b.jpg


dash_b3.jpg


dash_b2.jpg


dash_b1.jpg


seats_b1.jpg



After:

seats_a2.jpg


seats_a1.jpg


dash_a3.jpg


dash_a2.jpg


dash_a1.jpg


hatch1.jpg


headliner_rear.jpg


interior_after_1.jpg


interior_after_2.jpg


Couple Exterior Shots:

ext_side_high.jpg


ext_rear_2.jpg


ext_rear_1.jpg


ext_front_1.jpg
 
WillyB93

WillyB93

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Made a big difference looks good!!!!!! I like the color emerald green, I just sold my 1992 gt in that color to buy my 1993 cobra teal and black. I sold it to a friend so I get to see it often!!!
 
FISHTAIL

FISHTAIL

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4valvemach said:
WOW that came out great :rockon:

I did my 90gt in black plastic/vinyl paint and it looked like crap never again.
Click to expand...

Really? That's all I did here. 50resto sells that vinyl and hard plastic dye in a spray can. I gutted the interior (down to the sheet metal), washed all the parts, primed them with their primer, then dyed them with the cans. Looks like new.


WillyB93 said:
Made a big difference looks good!!!!!! I like the color emerald green, I just sold my 1992 gt in that color to buy my 1993 cobra teal and black. I sold it to a friend so I get to see it often!!!
Click to expand...

Thanks. This car was originally emerald green, but it's now some other darker green. When I got it repainted back in '01 the painter wanted me to let him do something a little different...so I did. The car is a darker green, and the ground effects are straight silver. So it's similar to the original color, but the green is darker, and the silver is much brighter.
 
FISHTAIL

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Just because I went through the trouble of writing it up over on the gt registry, I figured I'd re-post it here to get some more milage out of it:

Ok, so first I'll give you guys a bit of background on the car so you see how this even got started. Basically, this is my second car (I've had many since) and I bought it after I sold my 88GT. I am the 3rd owner, and between the previous two owners and myself, the car has always been garage kept. So years back (prior to marriage, house, and kid) I decided to swap out the cam in prep to buy a blower for the car. Even though it had roughly 200k on it at the time, it was still running strong so I figured it would live a little while longer...I was wrong. We nicked a cam bearing during the install, which caused a loss of oil pressure, and walla..no more engine. So, while I was building the new engine, I got married, bought a house (and a few more mustangs), and as a result the car sat, sat, and sat some more. So...after finally getting the car together mechanically I sit down inside of it and decided that the interior just wasn't going to cut it anymore. I'd spent years rebuilding the car, and the interior looked worse than ever.

So, I logged onto 50resto, and ordered up about 10 cans of vinyl dye, lacquer, primer, and cleaner. I then completely stripped the interior down to the metal. I wasn't planning on replacing the headliner originally, however, as you can see from this picture, once I removed the sail panels I discovered the the headliner was falling (thanks to some mice living above it actually).

headliner_falling.jpg


So essentially what I did was take an evening, and stripped the interior. It only took me a couple of hours to get everything out. You can essentially take the entire car apart with a philips screw driver and an 8mm socket. Getting the original carpet up can be a bit grimey, and you need to be careful not to damage anything when removing the dash. Once apart, I took this opportunity to clean EVERYTHING. I washed the whole inside of the car down with windex multi-surface cleaner to help get rid of any of the musty smell that was still lingering from the car sitting for so long. Also, I had some mouse pee to clean up...anyway...the car stripped:

stripped_int2.jpg


stripped_int.jpg


gutted_fox.jpg


parts_pile.jpg


parts_everywhere.jpg


So, once I had everything apart, the real work started. Since all the plastic interior parts in these cars is that textured style plastic, you'll probably notice that there is lots of dirt crammed into the little crevasses everywhere. Armorall, or some other cleaner would probably get that out for you, but it would also leave an oily residue behind that would prevent the dye from adhering properly. So what I did was get one of those two sided kitchen sponges (with the scrubbing pad on the back), some dish detergent, and washed each panel down in hot soapy water. Some of them took some good scrubbing to get clean, but they all came clean. Once I had them rised and dried, I taped off anything that required taping (like the black portion around the windows on the sail panels) then laid on a nice even coat of primer. I held the can about 10" off the panel, and went back and forth in short even strokes taking frequent brakes to shake the can. After the primer had dried, I followed up with two coats of the color.

The vinyl parts get done in a very similar manner. Only rather than using soap and water to clean these, I used the vinyl cleaner that 50resto sells. This stuff is smelly, and tends to make the parts sticky. However, it does do a good job cleaning the parts up. So once that stuff dried, I applied the color to the vinyl. Here you can see the difference between the freshly colored part (left) and the original (right):

door_panels.jpg



Something I did that most folks probably won't bother doing when/if they do this, is I completely took everything apart to dye it individually. When I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING. I took the handle out of the glove box. I took the center armwrest apart (which btw, is a huge pain to re-assemble), I took the vents out of the dash, and then the registers out of the vents. I then covered the vent frames with painters tape, and cut out around the white parts with an xacto knife so that I wouldn't loose the white indicator markings after I re-dyed everything. This part of the process takes a while, but really helps to give it a factory fresh appearance.

dash_apart.jpg



Once I was done with everything, I started the reassembly process. I also took this opportunity to run all new 14 gauge speaker wire for the stereo. No better time to do this than when the interior is going back together. I also ran new wiring for all my after market gauges, and cleaned up my fog light fix from ages ago. I then re-installed the carpet, followed by the dash:

new_carpet2.jpg


new_carpet1.jpg


The rest of the interior goes back together pretty easily. The headliner takes a small bit of fussing, but all in all, the re-assembly process is pretty straightforward. Just be careful not to get any of your freshly painted parts dirty.

I know this "writeup" is a little hap-hazard, but I wasn't planning on doing anything other than posting pictures before Kathy asked. However, since I realize I've probably left something important out (after all, I did this over a long period of time so I've probably forgot some stuff) I will be happy to answer any questions.
 
FISHTAIL

FISHTAIL

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Callaway Cobra said:
Looks good Mike... A lot of hard work right there. I still want to hear that thing everytime i see it is just sits there lol
Click to expand...

hahahaha, it runs man. I was going to shoot a video of it over the weekend to post up, but Marisa took the video camera with her to NE. You don't think I pushed it out into the street and the neighbors driveway do ya? lol. In fact, I tore some of the finish off of my floor this weekend trying to get the car up on boards to check the clearances on the front end. Apparently while trying to pull up I did a burn out...doh.
 
WillyB93

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Well thanks on the paint update looks great an all to familiar site. I did the same to my emerald green GT car just didn't repaint the interior just cleaned up the panels and installed new carpet made a huge difference and was also done over 3 year period!!!
 
FISHTAIL

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hahaha. Yeah, sometimes stuff just takes longer than we want I guess. After I have a chance to enjoy it, I'll clean it up under the hood. For now, it can stay as it is...everything in there is new or rebuilt, but the stuff you see doesn't look all that great.
 
WillyB93

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If it looked like mine did it really needed repainted but changed gears to the cobra cars that were original and still in great condition!!!
 

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