Justwondering
Well-Known Member
I promised a post about gotcha's and learnings when I did the trip and antenna. Here goes.
Trim:
1. Takes way more fabric to recover all the interior trim than you think. 10 to 12 yards unless you make a mistake and have to recover something.
2. Hardest trim part to recover is the a-pillars. I did the driver side 3 times before I got it right. Wasted easily 3/4 yard of fabric.
The A-pillar plastic piece has 4 'legs' and a long wide spine.
Getting all 4 inside curves without wrinkles and without cutting the excess fabric too short was difficult. Make sure you are as stress-free as possible before you start.
3. The key to getting the fabric on the a-pillar --- use the stretch of the fabric in your favor.
Glue the front of the spine first then pick one end and do it next. Audition the fabric several times and leave generous extra fabric to cover the legs.
My best analogy is pantyhose, but since few of you guys put on pantyhose.. think of this more like a condom. The material has plenty of stretch and you want to pull the fabric over each leg and have the tension of the fabric work with you to keep it pulled tight and held in place.
Put some contact cement on the top side of each leg, after you've auditioned the fabric and figured out where to cut a few slits for the curve. DO NOT CUT TENSION SLITS TOO DEEP. If you do, it will show when installed and you get to do it again.
Only put the glue on the plastic. Do not coat the back of the fabric. Wait. Wait. Let the glue get tacky. If you put the fabric on immediately IT WILL BLEED TO THE FRONT OF THE FABRIC... and you'll get to cut more fabric and do it again.
Lay the fabric on the top side of the pillar leg and stretch/ease the fabric over the edge of the leg. It will snug down and lay flat.
Glue your edges AFTER you get both legs covered.
4. Plastic pieces can be scrapped with a wire brush to get the old fabric and glue off. However, you could also use Xylene or Tuolene to clean the last of the glue. I tried both. They work. But they stink and you need to have good ventilation and hands gloved.
Heat gun! After you get the bulk of the fabric/glue pulled or wire brushed off, use a heat gun to make the glue a little tacky. Use your hand or a piece of fabric and your hand to 'roll the glue dough' off the plastic. Worked like a charm. No stink, no issues.
5. Using the aluminum backed fiberglass insulation above the headliner really reduces heat gain in the car.
6. DO NOT USE HEAT GUN ON THE HEADLINER fabric. What an idiot I was. I had a little bit of glue bleed through the headliner and thought - why not try to get it a little warm and blot it off? Wrong. By the time the glue was 'tacky' I had started melting the fabric. Don't do it. Now I constantly see that problem area. What was I thinking?
7. Use plenty of baggies to keep your fasteners for one area together. Mine had non-standard fasteners in some of the holes. Apparently someone had 'fixed' things before and the solution was to get a bigger screw rather than repair the trim.
8. Do not obsess about the direction of the fabric. I was warned by the upholstery shop -- don't worry about the 'grain' or 'weave direction' of the fabric. Just lay things out to use the least amount of fabric possible. They were right. You will not notice anything about the direction of the fabric weave. There are so many angles and shadows and you rarely sit and stare at any of the trim long enough for it to register that the tiny weave of the fabric on the left piece is at a different angle than the right piece.
9. Clean your seat belts while you have all the trim out.
10. Go ahead and replace the seat belt tensioners while you are cleaning your seat belts. I didn't and wish I had. Every single time I get out, I have to fuss with the belt to get it to retract or the thing hangs out the door when I shut it.
11. It will take over a gallon of contact cement to to the headliner and all the pieces. Especially if you have to re-do any pieces like I did. Just buy he big gallon can. Its less pricey than buying 4 of the smaller cans.
12
.
If you don't take time and audition your fabric, then ease the fabric onto problem areas, you will get wrinkles. Compare the left piece to the right piece.
Also notice how much extra fabric I have left and the slits to ease the tension. AFTER you have things glued, you can always cut more fabric away.
13. Take pictures of front and back of each piece BEFORE you strip them. Print the pictures - even just black and white. Then refer to them when you recover. I didn't do this. I regretted the decision. I was frequently having too much bulk and having to go back and cut extra fabric off the backside of the plastic trim to get things to line up.
OR
You think you only have a front and a back to cover. Most pieces that is true. But there are a couple of trim pieces that have a front, side, and back. You don't have a picture, you cover it like it is a front and back and realize after you install it that the 'back' was really a side that needed too look good. So you pull off the fabric and try again.
This was a problem for me on the rear wheel well trim piece and the front A-pillar on the driver side.
14. Takes way more time than you imagine, just because when you start you are trying to keep the glue from dripping. You don't let the glue get tacky. You don't take time to 'audition' the cut fabric. About half-way through the process, every thing just clicks and things go faster.
15. Installation of the trim is pretty easy except for
- Base for the sun visors -- use tape and mark the orientation of the base BEFORE you remove it
- Inside bonnet on the ceiling. Took me forever to find the screw holes. Use a long thin screwdriver or a punch to get things lined up before you go looking for the hole with the screw.
- Use a solder iron (heated) to poke through the fabric to open up a screw hole and melt the fabric a little. If the fabric gets caught up in the screw threads, you will pull the fabric and it wads up behind the screw.
Trim:
1. Takes way more fabric to recover all the interior trim than you think. 10 to 12 yards unless you make a mistake and have to recover something.
2. Hardest trim part to recover is the a-pillars. I did the driver side 3 times before I got it right. Wasted easily 3/4 yard of fabric.
The A-pillar plastic piece has 4 'legs' and a long wide spine.
Getting all 4 inside curves without wrinkles and without cutting the excess fabric too short was difficult. Make sure you are as stress-free as possible before you start.
3. The key to getting the fabric on the a-pillar --- use the stretch of the fabric in your favor.
Glue the front of the spine first then pick one end and do it next. Audition the fabric several times and leave generous extra fabric to cover the legs.
My best analogy is pantyhose, but since few of you guys put on pantyhose.. think of this more like a condom. The material has plenty of stretch and you want to pull the fabric over each leg and have the tension of the fabric work with you to keep it pulled tight and held in place.
Put some contact cement on the top side of each leg, after you've auditioned the fabric and figured out where to cut a few slits for the curve. DO NOT CUT TENSION SLITS TOO DEEP. If you do, it will show when installed and you get to do it again.
Only put the glue on the plastic. Do not coat the back of the fabric. Wait. Wait. Let the glue get tacky. If you put the fabric on immediately IT WILL BLEED TO THE FRONT OF THE FABRIC... and you'll get to cut more fabric and do it again.
Lay the fabric on the top side of the pillar leg and stretch/ease the fabric over the edge of the leg. It will snug down and lay flat.
Glue your edges AFTER you get both legs covered.
4. Plastic pieces can be scrapped with a wire brush to get the old fabric and glue off. However, you could also use Xylene or Tuolene to clean the last of the glue. I tried both. They work. But they stink and you need to have good ventilation and hands gloved.
Heat gun! After you get the bulk of the fabric/glue pulled or wire brushed off, use a heat gun to make the glue a little tacky. Use your hand or a piece of fabric and your hand to 'roll the glue dough' off the plastic. Worked like a charm. No stink, no issues.
5. Using the aluminum backed fiberglass insulation above the headliner really reduces heat gain in the car.
6. DO NOT USE HEAT GUN ON THE HEADLINER fabric. What an idiot I was. I had a little bit of glue bleed through the headliner and thought - why not try to get it a little warm and blot it off? Wrong. By the time the glue was 'tacky' I had started melting the fabric. Don't do it. Now I constantly see that problem area. What was I thinking?
7. Use plenty of baggies to keep your fasteners for one area together. Mine had non-standard fasteners in some of the holes. Apparently someone had 'fixed' things before and the solution was to get a bigger screw rather than repair the trim.
8. Do not obsess about the direction of the fabric. I was warned by the upholstery shop -- don't worry about the 'grain' or 'weave direction' of the fabric. Just lay things out to use the least amount of fabric possible. They were right. You will not notice anything about the direction of the fabric weave. There are so many angles and shadows and you rarely sit and stare at any of the trim long enough for it to register that the tiny weave of the fabric on the left piece is at a different angle than the right piece.
9. Clean your seat belts while you have all the trim out.
10. Go ahead and replace the seat belt tensioners while you are cleaning your seat belts. I didn't and wish I had. Every single time I get out, I have to fuss with the belt to get it to retract or the thing hangs out the door when I shut it.
11. It will take over a gallon of contact cement to to the headliner and all the pieces. Especially if you have to re-do any pieces like I did. Just buy he big gallon can. Its less pricey than buying 4 of the smaller cans.
12
.
If you don't take time and audition your fabric, then ease the fabric onto problem areas, you will get wrinkles. Compare the left piece to the right piece.
Also notice how much extra fabric I have left and the slits to ease the tension. AFTER you have things glued, you can always cut more fabric away.
13. Take pictures of front and back of each piece BEFORE you strip them. Print the pictures - even just black and white. Then refer to them when you recover. I didn't do this. I regretted the decision. I was frequently having too much bulk and having to go back and cut extra fabric off the backside of the plastic trim to get things to line up.
OR
You think you only have a front and a back to cover. Most pieces that is true. But there are a couple of trim pieces that have a front, side, and back. You don't have a picture, you cover it like it is a front and back and realize after you install it that the 'back' was really a side that needed too look good. So you pull off the fabric and try again.
This was a problem for me on the rear wheel well trim piece and the front A-pillar on the driver side.
14. Takes way more time than you imagine, just because when you start you are trying to keep the glue from dripping. You don't let the glue get tacky. You don't take time to 'audition' the cut fabric. About half-way through the process, every thing just clicks and things go faster.
15. Installation of the trim is pretty easy except for
- Base for the sun visors -- use tape and mark the orientation of the base BEFORE you remove it
- Inside bonnet on the ceiling. Took me forever to find the screw holes. Use a long thin screwdriver or a punch to get things lined up before you go looking for the hole with the screw.
- Use a solder iron (heated) to poke through the fabric to open up a screw hole and melt the fabric a little. If the fabric gets caught up in the screw threads, you will pull the fabric and it wads up behind the screw.
