So my friend picked up a PY a while ago and we've been spending some time refurbishing it. The upper portion of the rear seats were faded from parking the car outside (yikes!). He complained that he hated looking out the back of the car only to see the faded rear seats. So I bought some Duplicolor flat black vinyl and fabric paint to attempt to restore the color to the seats.


This is what it looked like before it was painted. It doesn't look that bad but when you look out the back of the car, the tweed appeared bluish and the alcantara was faded.


At first I wanted to just paint the tweed section because I was unsure if the alcantara could be painted. I was afraid that it would cause the alcantara to become matted. I masked off the alcantara area and lightly painted the tweed. It came out really good but contrasted with the faded alcantara top portion of the seat.


This is what it looked like compared to the unpainted seat.


I decided that I would try to paint the alcantara. So I test sprayed the bottom of the seat to see how the color and texture would turn out. The color matched pretty well and the surface texture was ok. I decided that I would blend the color in instead of painting all of the alcantara.


The tough part was trying to figure out a way to mask off the red stitch. I used some Glide brand floss because it was wide enough to cover the stitch.


I taped it down on the lower portion because it would lift in some areas. I was only concerned about the top portion of the seat so I kept the tape near the middle.


I made sure to spray light coats to avoid bleeding the paint into the red stitch.




The seat on the left is the fully painted seat. The one in the middle is one with just the center painted. And the one on the right is a normal unfaded one.


This is what the seats looked like when I was all done.


The seats look a lot better than before. However, I shoudn't have painted the entire tweed area as it looks blacker than the alcantara adjacent to it. It doesn't look bad or anything but I think that it would have been easier if I had just masked off the red stitch and painted the whole top portion.

Also, if you look really close, in some areas you can see where the masked floss area begins and ends. I think that if I had applied lighter coats and pulled the floss tighter to the seat, I would have gotten better results. Regardless, the restoration was a total success. And now my friend can look out the rear view mirror without ignoring the seats!


Modified by markpaco at 6:46 AM 7/24/2006


Modified by markpaco at 6:50 AM 7/24/2006

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by markpaco &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">So my friend picked up a PY a while ago and we've been spending some time refurbishing it. The upper portion of the rear seats were faded from parking the car outside (yikes!). He complained that he hated looking out the back of the car only to see the faded rear seats.</TD></TR></TABLE>

You should have told your friend to fold down the rear seats, so he wouldn't have to see them in the rear view mirror.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Reid &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

You should have told your friend to fold down the rear seats, so he wouldn't have to see them in the rear view mirror. </TD></TR></TABLE>

or just take them out all together

Great efforts in restoring the look of the seats.

 

looks great!

 

it looks good with just the center portion painted, but good job.

 

wow, great job. how much money and time did this end up costing you? do you have prior experaince painting?

 

good job

 

nice write up

 

finally someone has solved this ongoing problem with our ITRs

the comeon solution is: you can't do anything about it, get 20% tint next time
good job

 

sweet idea mark. i woudve just painted everything that was black besides the red-stitch, that way the "new" darker black would be more consistent and there would be no need for blending. but however way you look at it, this is a great idea that will help your fellow R heads

 

good write up.....im having that same problem

 

Hey Markpaco......when you check this thread out could you PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE post the url to your R website? You had some REALLY wicked info on there...if it's still on the www that is....








Modified by 1250b18c5 at 9:18 AM 7/24/2006

 

An excellent informative post. Thank-you.

Tinting the ITR would also be a preventative measure to the seat fade due to UV damage.

 

sick job looks good...takes some ***** to just try that on those seats

 

Sorry to let you know but that paint is terrible.

I thought I would try the same thing, however it just rubs off after it dries.

There was a thread in appearence forum, where I told a guy not to do it, but he did and the same thing happened.

 

wow, nice work

 

looks great keep up the good ideas

 

Awesome write up. Bookmarking it because I should deff do this to mine once I stop being lazy.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Arsenal &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Sorry to let you know but that paint is terrible.

I thought I would try the same thing, however it just rubs off after it dries.

There was a thread in appearence forum, where I told a guy not to do it, but he did and the same thing happened.</TD></TR></TABLE>

This scares me. I would hate to do it, then if anything would lay on the seats, the would get ink all over them.

PLEASE do a follow up in about a month or so and let us know how they turned out durability wise. That would be awesome!

 

not bad, looks pretty good for the restoration..
thats one of the reason i tinted my windows..


pink seats would look meh.

 

Looks great, but can anyone ever sit on them without it flaking off?

 

how much money and time did this end up costing you? do you have prior experaince painting?

The paint was like $8. Floss was a free sample but costs $3 or so otherwise. The masking tape is like $5 but learned that you don't really need it. I wouldn't call myself an experienced painter (never painted a car) aside from painting model cars and doing some spot repairs.

Tinting the ITR would also be a preventative measure to the seat fade due to UV damage.

I TOTALLY agree. Unfortunately, my friend bought the car used and it was missing one of the rear upper seatbacks. I located a set of rear seats on ebay but when they came in they were faded. Stupid me for leaving positive feedback before I installed them. The seats looked ok in the garage but in natural light, the faded blue appeared. The car already was tinted and the single seatback (shown in the pics) was unfaded.

Hey Markpaco......when you check this thread out could you PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE post the url to your R website? You had some REALLY wicked info on there...if it's still on the www that is....

I lost my website after I graduated from college. I still have all my info saved and will put it back up one day.

Sorry to let you know but that paint is terrible.
I thought I would try the same thing, however it just rubs off after it dries.

I thought about that and told him before I did it. He doesn't usually have back seat passengers so they won't get as much duty as the front seats. Also, the only consequence of having the paint come off is just retouching it later.

Looks great, but can anyone ever sit on them without it flaking off?

I've used a similar product on a cargo cover on my old Civic Si. And yes, the paint eventually wore away. I just touched it up and it was all good again. I don't recall any flaking; the blue just eventually reappeared in some areas. Since what I have is already black, I don't think that the effects of it wearing away will be as evident.

I'll take some pics with the seats in the car next time I see him. The sunlight exaggerates the contrast of the tweed and alcantara. When you have it in the darker interior (esp on a tinted car) the contrast gets drowned out.

 

good job. looks great.
-ed

 

nice work on the seat resto

 

as long as no one sits in the rear, you shouldnt have a problem, but in my experience these fabric sprays come off real easily.

 

Looks really good