Here I am, two weeks after the actual work has been done, trying to write up what I have done while being totally drained after another busy day, which, by the way, not related to the cars or bikes. But hey, tasks need to be done and we are here not to complain. So let’s talk upholstery.
I will start with advice to you, dear reader. If you ever come across a good upholsterer, please pay as much respect as you can. Keep reading why.
In previous posts you may have seen I was preparing dash for the fix. It basically had area cut-out and my plan was to use two-part foam kit to build up material and then trim-tidy up, followed by vinyl trim.
Here how the dashboard looked like:
Sorry for the funny angle, I always find difficult to capture photos while wearing work gloves and being filthy..
Anyway, the initial idea was to fill the cut-out with the foam and then cut matching size vinyl AND try to hot stamp the same pattern so it blends-in with the rest of the dash. I ordered some stretch vinyl sample packs to see if I can actually buy matching one:
The above samples are from AS Trim, Vehicle Textile Suppliers – Buy Upholstery, & Adhesives Online UK Ipswich (as-trim.co.uk)
I also had one piece from British Auto Upholstery Material Wholesaler – Martrim Car Trimming Supplies but it wasn’t as stretchy and the grain was off too much.
I found that one of the above grains looked almost identical to mine but there was a problem.. Collor.
There is such a slim chance that you will match the color, density and thickness (which is very, very important) I came to realisation that it will have to be entire dash re-trim. So the same evening I took my heatgun and started removing the original vinyl. Which in my opinion, is not really a vinly, more like a blend of soft plastic. It was not stretchy at all, but quite soft. Eitherway it only took like 10mins to get the old skin off. I should have been more careful in some areas, such as above the wents, where foam is very very thin layer and it obviously came off with the old skin. I didn’t realised the issue until I finished retrimming.
You can see the burn marks in the foam because of the manufacturing process. It didn’t matter to me at all, just interesting to see it. I then mixed my two-part foam kit. In this case I used Polycraft 022 – Medium Polyurethane Foam – mbfg.co.uk which I actually purchased via eBay. There was no savings buying direct so I was fancy to earn couple of Nectar points. What a cheap skates 🙂
It was a medium stifness, but I should have gone for hard. I later figured out it was just too soft. But anyway, I mixed the kit using scales (must be mixed by weight, not volume!) and consumed around half of the 750g kit. The fully cured foam is not really the same stuff as in the dashboard, but close enough in this case. Only thing I didn’t like was the actual surface of the foam – it became shiny and really dense, while the stuff below had some cavities/trapped air/bubbles.
Once this was completely dry I started to cut the excess off with hacksaw blade. It was quite difficult because of multiple angles but I kind of made it.
I then got excited and brought my vinyl. I ordered 2×1.4m, which suppose to give me two attempts. The standard roll width is 1.4m and they sell it by meter.
I did watch few YT videos of how to trim dashboard but they all seemed pretty simple shapes, where’s this is quite complex, particularly around the instruments cluster. Anyway the work started and I was doing reasonably well. Must say I did primed the vinyl (adhesive side) with special primer and then used AS-Trim recommended glue (with a brush).
Advice – use very well ventilated area and best face mask/filter you can get. I think I poisoned myself and called sick next day..
Here’s vinyl on top, at the very start. Didn’t really had a clue how to do it – it was my first time. Started somewhere in the middle and worked to the sides. Soon I discovered the vinyl becomes very stretchy if you heat it with the heatgun. Obviously, at price – you loose grain quality. But some areas would be impossible to make without decent stretch.
It took my around 3hrs to complete the trim and it looked like this:
Whiiiiiich I wasn’t happy about…. You can see the air-bag location mountains? Yep, they were awful from all angles. But at that point I thought – it’s much better than hole. So I fitted it to the car and assembled the interior. That was a mistake!
Firstly, the sun was out, which meant that glue was tacky for much longer due to the heat generated inside the car. It lifted in some places, particularly around the cluster.
Secondly, I didn’t use enough glue in some areas.
Thirdly, I didn’t stretch vinyl enough in some corners.
Ah well! I used it for a week, had another failure in front of the dash, where vinyl moved back so much it exposed the foam. It looked bad. So next weekend comes and I am taking the dash out again…
HOWEVER, this time I have watched MORE youtube videos and have little more confidence. I figured that you can easily use sanding tools to smoothen the surface, which gave me amazing results. I used my cheap polishing tool (see previous posts) and I think it was 80 grit sandpaper. It really worked well! I obviously went up in grit later and got to a very good, smooth surface. Shortly after I started to fit my second cut of vinyl, despite being 8pm and getting dark:
This time I already had a little experience and started at the middle, with plenty of glue. It is quite tricky – glue makes it really cold, sort of chemical reaction style, but it adheres better when it gets warm, though not too warm. Too much heat makes it loose contact! So you need just enough heat and work in trough. I did opposite way round this time and went from middle to the left, which is much simpler shape. My Lidl clamps helped again as seen in the picture. You normally need to hold vinyl in place for about 10mins which is quite tiresome. So best to get some clamps.
I didn’t put it in the car straight after either. I let it fully dry in the office room at home for 48 hrs. I regularly checked if it’s drying well and all difficult areas fully adhered. The result was amazing (well, at least if you compare to the first attempt!).
At the same time having plenty of off-cuts I thought why not use it for the old air-bag housing from driver’s steering wheel. I removed the actual air-bag and used heatgun to melt joints and basically glued it together:
Using same principle I took the MG badge out. Then a little sanding of the surfaces so the glue adheres to something and here’s the result:
Yes, it’s far from original, but it will be much better than empty steering wheel with wires hanging out!
Fitted to the car:
I now have few things to fix – regas air conditioner, finish fixing the air-bag ECU (which seems to not communicate over CAN), find replacement <cheap> air-bags and potentially change gearbox oil (because some of it leaked through the vent).
That’s it for now. Been using the car in this condition for couple of weeks every day and have been really pleased by it. Only first few days I used Sport mode and now always stick it to Eco. I found it to be more comparable to ICE car with little less steering assist but still great on power. Not so reactive, but still spins wheels every now and then. We recently had a trip to Hitchin and on average I achieved 4.4 mi/kWh which is very very good!
So to sum up, upholstery is very difficult job. Takes tons of patience and experience. But I now feel confident enough that I could do this again! Happy days.