I’ve seen a few people asking questions on painting there interior and decided to do a write up. I’ve painted my interior professionally. My dad runs an auto-body business here at the house. Your going to need the following:
-1: pint of vinyl dye will do the job. In fact you could probably do 2 cars off a pint but you cant buy anything smaller.
-2: a place to do the job or a friend with an equipped shop. That means a spray guy and air compressor (NOT I repeat NOT an automotive shop with a gun. Automotive shops and similar have oil mixed into the compressor lines to lubricate the tools and is big no no for paint.
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-3: Scotch Bright red. (not sandpaper. Sandpaper wont do the job anywhere near as well)
-4: lacquer thinner
-5: masking tape (optional) if you plan on taping up stickers, etc.
You need vinyl dye. Do NOT use regular paint, car paint, canned paint, or finger paints
. It doesn’t stick as well. If you have any type of armor all or similar applied recently it makes things like fish eyes and bubbles and all sorts of nasty stuff. Make sure you haven’t applied any for awhile. If you have, wait at least a month before attempting this job since armor all is oil and oil doesn’t stick to paint. Youu need it to seep into the pores of the interior as it dyes the interior and isn’t just a surface coat like regular paint. Regular paint doesn’t last as long. It’s not designed to flex or move like the properties of vinyl permit. if you bump your interior hard it might crack. not a good thing. Do you want your interior cracking? I think not.
This is what you want to do... you need a hook up at an auto body shop because they don’t sell this paint to anyone off the streets. I'ts professional grade and the best you can buy right now. Go somewhere and find the color you want by looking through the catalogs auto body businesses have. Don’t pic a metallic color as it doesn’t work as well. Metallic colors are created with small metal flakes and those don’t exactly soak into the vinyl. the dye you want is called S.E.M. brand dye. It’s very expensive...14$ a pint or 40$ a quart. I got a pint mixed and used half of the can to do the ENTIRE interior job I wanted. I did a lot of parts and probably painted around 30-40 pieces.
that being said now well get started. First you take your pieces out you plan to victimize. Clean them with lacquer thinner extremely good especially if you EVER applied armor all. Pay close attention, clean it really good. then you want some red scotch bright, not sandpaper. scuff every little spot you can very good. Its going to take some time and elbow so get comfortable. your goal is to remove all the shine. After a little while take a look. If its black like my interior was it should start to look like a light gray from sanding. Then you want to clean it again with lacquer thinner. Take a look and ask yourself... is there any remaining shine? did I get every spot? Don’t compromise you’ll regret it later. It may be a pain in the ass but you have to do it. If you need a little more time then go at it again then clean it again.
When your done it should have a flat color look. Make sure to clean it very well at the end as dust is very bad for the application. That’s what you do to prep the pieces. Then load up a spray gun and put it on in even strokes. You want to put this stuff on very wet and not thin layers, otherwise it has a rougher texture and tends to get flakey, don’t make the mistake I did at first. It only takes a few minutes to dry before another coat and you want about 2-3 coats. Let it dry for awhile and voila, your done. Put your pieces in and admire your work.
After a day or so and your SURE your done and happy with all your pieces apply some armor all. Better be done though because its not good if you haven’t finished. This gives the pieces a clear coated look without the negatives of actual clear coat (real paint we covered why it sucks.). After that you should be done. Now admire your work and smile for a job well done.
Here are some pictures of my paintjob after I finished to see what it will come out like:
and a close up to show the texture.
i got my shift and ebrake boot off a guy on ebay which to my surprise matched my color completely. i was amazed and very happy to find this out. now stop readin this crap and go make your car damn sexy!
edit: added a few things and split the thing up so grover wont get a headache.
