Just wanted to document my interior swap here, basically to show off the work I did, and to help out others and give some pointers on such a project.

I bought a '90 Accord LX coupe last week, with the "lovely" maroon cloth interior.

Absolutely everything inside is maroon, from the dash, to the carpet. There's no other colours to break it up, except for the A,B and C pillars, and the headliner and sun visors which are grey on all CB7s, regardless of interior colour.

Not only do I hate maroon with a passion, I already had a bunch of parts ready for a swap. There wasn't much I actually had to purchase for this project.

I've been working on this for a week, and I am just about finished. The biggest thing I need is tan seatbelts, and have been unable to locate any yet, so for safety sake, I'm still rockin the maroon belts. Otherwise, just small things need to be buttoned up to finish it off.

So, let's get into it. Here's what I had to start with.





Before I began this whole project, I didn't want to get rid of ALL of the maroon, because this interior was literally mint condition. I just wanted to break up all of the maroon with a little colour, with black being my choice.

Step 1, was replacing the carpet, with the black carpet from a 1991 SE sedan. Note: The OEM carpet from sedans/coupes/wagons are all interchangeable and fit...BUT...Because a coupe has longer doors, the B pillar is set back further. If you use a sedan/wagon carpet in a coupe, you will be left with a slight gap in the carpet between your bottom seatbelt bolt and the door sill. However, if you come up with a way to tuck it down, such as using double sided tape, or velcro, you will overcome this issue.

With the old carpet out, I found out how clean my floor pans are. I vacuumed out any debris and crap from the last 20 years and layed the new carpet in.



Here is the gap, explained above


A couple days later, I pulled the black dash from the SE at the wreckers.



Pulled out the maroon dash


Remembered to swap VINs!


Install begins



Next, I wanted to but the black rear deck shelf in. Needing to remove the rear seats, C pillars and panels, to do this, I also decided to put my tan leather in.


Now, the tan leather from a '93 SE coupe is installed. However, when I got rid of my 93 SE parts car, I got rid of all the tan panels, and only kept the seats. How I wish I'd have kept it all!


This is the worst part now. I have crank windows. Can't find any other coupe door panels with crank windows within a 3 hour radius of me. I was forced into drastic action to change the colour of my panels.

Using SEM interior paint, I sprayed my door panels, door sills, kick panels and trunk panels and centre console.


To match the OEM black dash, I chose to go with Semi Gloss Black, and I'll tell you, this stuff is absolutely fantastic, and I highly recommend it. Make sure you spray somewhere well ventilated, because this stuff smells awful.

You can spray this stuff on carpet, but I found it didn't work too well on my cloth door panel inserts, leaving me with what looked like dark purple cloth now.

Here is attempt 1. Panel looks good, but the insert...not so much.


I have sprayed all the panels with 3 coats of the SEM paint, and I reupholstered my inserts with black tweed. As a little finishing touch, I ran a nice little 1/8" chrome strip around them.

Here's with the tweed, but no chrome


With the chrome. Sorry about the poor lighting. Dim garage + camera flash = fail





Taken before the chrome was put on


So, just a few loose ends to tie up, and get proper coloured seatbelts, but in the meantime, this has made the biggest difference in the world, and is now also a one of a kind CB7 interior.

I'll update as progress is made, and don't hesitate to ask questions and leave feedback.

 

nice job.
what glue do u use for the inserts door panel?

 

You need NEw floor mats!! lol

nice job, do those seats sit any higher.

 

lol I agree with the floor mats....they are just some old ones I had laying around, since I no longer had any factory black mats.

As for the glue, I just used some aerosol spray adhesive.

The seats do not sit any higher,since they are the same seats, just with leather instead of cloth.

 

Looks really good! So much better.

What sort of prep did you do before the SEM? Does is stick pretty well and what does it feel like? Sorry for the questions, but I have 2 cars I really want to do this too

 

For prep, I just scuffed the surfaces with a prep pad, and then wiped them down with degreaser. Need atleast 2 coats for nice, full coverage. Smells really bad, and comes out sort of thick, so you have to be careful not to put too much on or it'll run.

 

Ok cool Does it seem to stick pretty well? Does it feel like OEM interior stuff once it dries?

 

Looks & feels OEM to me.

The finish seems to be pretty durable, unless you get something sticky on it, like adhesives, then it can come off.

Biggest problem is its been 2 days since I painted it and my interior still stinks of paint.

 

Haha, thanks man! I guess it would be good to keep the windows down for a few days )if you can) after painting.

 

I could...if I wanted my interior to be filled with snow and rain, or have things stolen.

 

i would love to see those tans seats shot black with some of that interior paint your using

 

I would hesitate to spray a high-wear item such as seats with that. Would rather do things the right way and reupholster the seats.

 

nice job . bro ... looks nice ... i hope the paint they dont come out ..

 

agreed.... nice stuff man!

 

nicee!!

 

Wow thats awesome! where did you purchase your new carpet from?