Interior restoration “How To” pt.1

As daunting and intimidating a task as it may seem, restoring dash pads, door panels, and other miscellaneous interior parts isn’t terribly difficult. I started my project last fall. Working out of a 16’x10’ shed, with no experience with upholstery work, and only able to work on my project on weekends for a total of about 10hrs per weekend total. All that I had was a tight budget, an idea of where I wanted to go and a prayer that I could get there. I’m sure the steps and processes that I took are not the best or easiest way to do this, but it worked for me and I’m happy with the result. What follows is my “journey” through my first ever attempt at restoring a vehicles interior.

A lot of these things when broke down and singled out could be done in a weekend if your truck is your daily driver. I hope you enjoy!

This is what I started with.



Removing the old brittle vinyl. I used a hair dryer to heat the material but a heat gun would probably work better. Just be careful to not melt the foam. This stuff gets hot so a glove on your “peeling hand” could be useful.



Bevel large cracks all the way down to the plastic under layer. I’m not sure if this is completely necessary but it is what I did before using hardware store spray foam to fill any and all cracks. Be sure to add enough foam for shaping, you will have to cut and sand the excess material.  I use 120 grit drywall sanding screen (less clogging) to shape the foam.







I decided to fill in my speaker hole. I just used basic Bondo fiberglass cloth and resin.



Time for glueing the material down. This is the adhesive I used. After a little research on YouTube this seemed to be what a fair number of people used. It’s resistant to heat up to 180° and is used in marine applications. I purchased it from Amazon. The downside is you have to buy a whole gallon. I’m not sure if this is the best choice but it worked for me.



When I started this project I started on the door skins. This gave me a learning curve for how the glue worked and you could remove the vinyl from the door plastic although it was very difficult to do so. This adhesive really sticks. For the doors I used a chip brush to apply the adhesive. Keep in mind you must apply the adhesive to both the base material and the fabric as it is a contact adhesive.  I was being cheap and didn’t want to purchase a pot spray gun. Do yourself a favor and start with the spray gun. They’re very affordable and would have saved several hours time. I think I payed less than $30 at Harbor Freight for mine. And you’ll need it anyway since brushing the glue onto the dash foam does not work. The foam acts like a giant sponge and soaked the glue in to deep for adhesion.

I purchased my vinyl from Sailrite.com  I ordered about 20 samples from them before I found the color combination I wanted. The fabric  is called EverSoft and has a “4” way stretch to it and made working some of the complex contours a bit more manageable. Just take your time and visualize where the material will bunch or fold and keep in mind things will almost never lay square. So give yourself plenty to work with.









I applied the fabric starting from the defrost vents forward. In hindsight I believe it may work better starting at the front and working back as I had to really stretch the material to make the contour on the right side of the radio bezel. Either way... take your time.  Especially on the dash if you try to remove the vinyl after you’ve brought both materials together you WILL rip the foam. If you must separate the two apply heat and be patient. The results are worth it.

Moving on to the door panels.







As you can see these were in rough shape. They were very “chalked up” and extremely dirty and faded. I started by sanding the whole panel with 80 grit being sure that I got all of the chalky material removed and removing the bat insulation on the inside of the panel. I then deep cleaned the whole panel. Then prepped the plastic with wax and grease remover. As I said above you can use a chip brush to apply the glue but I would highly recommend using a pot gun as you will save time and material.



Make sure you give yourself plenty of material to work with. On these I started on the hump side and worked towards the flatter side. I used the handle end of a plastic paint brush to help seat the vinyl in any recess. Do not push to hard as you may permanently scuff the vinyl.



After getting the first color down I used the trim recess to cut the outline out in preparation for the second color. I’m not sure how this would be done if you don’t have the chime trim but I’m sure a person could figure something out.



Putting the tan vinyl on was more of the same with the exception of the armrest area. This area has quite a lot of contours so be especially mindful of this area. Keep in mind that you can hide creases and overlaps under the armrest but be sure to remove any bulk material with a single edged razor blade. Sorry I don’t have any pics of this area without the armrest in place and to be honest it’s pretty ugly underneath. The trim does not sit like it did without the vinyl on. It’s tight but can be convinced to sit nicely with some gentle persuasion.



I didn’t like the way the material looked when I cut the speaker slits so I rounded up some grills from a 2000ish Ford van.

The armrest.



I tried making a mold and filling it with the expanding foam for the armrest. For me this didn’t work. The foam had different densities as it cured and I ended up with soft and hard spots and was not satisfied with the results. If you do decide to give that method a try I did find that the foam doe not stick to duct tape, so line your mold with it for easy removal.

I decided to just go the tried and true route of wood. The foam on the top is packing foam for packing dishes purchased from any box store. Do not use any type of styrene as the adhesive will melt it. If I remember correctly I used 3 layer of foam on the top and two on the outside. I left the inside without so it would sit positively against the door card.



I used a material a shade or two darker for the armrest than I did for the rest of the door and the dash pad.





MATERIAL LIST

If I remember correctly I ordered 5yrds of vinyl. I cannot find my receipt so I don’t know for sure. I do remember that the material came in 52” width so that was helpful for making the most of the vinyl.

Contact adhesive
I used most of the gallon but I’m guessing I would have used 1/3 less if I had started with a pot gun instead of chip brushes.

Pot spray gun
This is not absolutely necessary unless you’re doing the dash pad



Single edge razor blades
Buy at least 50 for trimming as soon as you feel any drag grab a new one it will make things easier

Tongue depressors
Used to push the vinyl into crevices

Plastic handled paint brush
Also used for pushing vinyl into crevices.

And most importantly....
Patience

Wow!  Well done, Randy!  Both the writeup as well as the actual work itself.  

I had no idea that a vinyl fabric could be stretched that way.  Or that much.  I'm guessing the "4 way" stretch was a big part of that.  Right?

Yes, the 4 way made all the difference. I was surprised at how well it worked.

Fantastic results, congratulations! I am also just dipping my feet in upholstery work, although not on my Ford truck, so it's great to see other people's work and how they did things.

Nice write up! Excellent work!

This will be useful. Getting harder to find parts and some stuff is getting very expensive on eBay and such.

Speaker grille looks great!

This gives me hope for my interior. Thanks for taking the time to write it up!

Super nice work and great how to.  Makes me think I might even could do that.  Naaahhhh, I know me better than that.   BUt looks great!  Thanks for sharing.

rcarlisle wrote

Super nice work and great how to.  Makes me think I might even could do that.  Naaahhhh, I know me better than that.   BUt looks great!  Thanks for sharing.

X2  a man has got to know his limitations and doing what you did is over mine!

I have a dash pad that I messed up on fixing it a few times and went with my spare.
I have the supplies, rosin & blanket, to glass the cover one day .
If it does not come out good oh well.
Dave ----

Thanks for the great write up, looking so much better than my "plastic" replacement parts. Something to consider for next winter. I didn't do it, as I did not think I could do it, but looks like its possible, even with less experience.

Fantastic work, Randy. Great write-up too!!! I'm curious, as this being your first time to do something like this, where did you get your ideas and such. I'd be combing the internet for weeks before I started something like that....LOL!

Gary, we need to file this away somewhere before it gets lost. We really need a "How To" Section with things like this, comments removed.    

John - How 'bout we put it in the Interior section?  Start a new page called How To Recover Dash Covers & Door Panels.  Meaning it would be in the menu as Documentation/Interior/How To Recover Dash Covers & Door Panels.  (Don't look, it ain't there yet.)

Randy - Is that OK with you?  I can do the work as you've provided all the text and pictures.  But, the title of this says "pt. 1".  When is pt. 2 coming and what does it cover?

Yes Gary that would be fine with me. I plan on doing part two sometime this coming week. I think in pt2 I’ll cover painting the plastics, including disassembling the gauges and painting those. Also what I did with the screws and such. I’ll will probably take me a few day to put it together as I didn’t take pictures of taking the gauges apart so I’ll need to get in the shed and document that process.

I'll wait for Part 2 and see how to put them together.  Thanks!

I actually did comb the ol’ interwebs but I couldn’t find anything like what I had in mind. Seems like most tutorials and how to videos were fiberglass or flocking. I didn’t like the look of either of those so I figured why not. Worst case scenario I could always fiberglass it if it didn’t turn out the way I wanted.