Interior Work Starting Soon

[One Owner 1982]

I’m replacing my dash pad and seatbelts soon. I will also be getting my front seats reupholstered and I will be removing the carpet to clean it really well. I’m also adding some speakers to the dash and sound suppression material in the floor. I will be painting the plastic interior sides in the rear. I’m hoping to have it all finished by spring.

 

[81Notch]

Awesome! I'm doing some interior work as well, looks like we ordered some of the same parts. Where did you get the dash pad from? National Parts Depot offers one that is dyeable, it's a little over $300 but I want it to match and will paint it with the SEM Color Coat that I ordered (from NPD) in "Vaquero". I've painted a few plastic pieces with it so far, including the kick panels, and I am very impressed. My car has a replacement dash pad in it which is in pretty good shape but oddly the driver's side speaker cutout does not align with the speaker hole in the dash. It is also not the right color.

Since you're adding some dash speakers, I'm curious if you're going to put three speakers up front. In my car, I removed the stock speakers already and will replace them eventually but I got to wondering how you run three speakers up front and two in the back with a standard 4-channel receiver/deck and no amp. I asked my highly intelligent electrical engineer friend this question and he turned me on to Ohm's law, which I don't understand but the part I get is that you can't just wire three dash speakers together and run them off two channels from the receiver and expect it to be OK. I want to install new 3.5" on each side in the dash and a 5x7" in the center, along with two 6x9" in the rear. Probably gonna need to run a 6-channel amp and power everything through that, but I really don't know the answer yet.

 

[One Owner 1982]

I got my dash pad from LMR. Their parts are usually right on the money. Yes I’m putting the 2.4 and a 5x7 in the dash. I already have a 4 speaker Sony Explode system in the car. Will definitely need an 8 channel amp to run them.

 

[One Owner 1982]

It has begun! I got seats and side panel's removed last night. Will pull carpet today and take front seats to upholstery shop this weekend.

 

[One Owner 1982]

Dash pad is out. I’ve started painting my rear sides. Here’s some before pictures

 

[One Owner 1982]

Removed the headliner last night. Then installed sound deadening in roof. Still haven’t removed carpet. It’s in good shape just needs to be cleaned. I have to be careful with it like everything else because it’s 41 years old and can be fragile.

 

[81Notch]

I'm curious to see how your rear quarters turn out, I bet they will look pretty good. I took mine out today, getting them prepped for paint.

 

[One Owner 1982]

One mistake I made was not priming them first. I’m going to prime and re-paint. The reason is the sunburned areas of the plastic are so thin the paint won’t not cover evenly. I will post pictures once it’s done

 

[81Notch]

What paint are you using? I have been spraying SEM Color Coat over a medium-wet coat of their Sand Free Adhesion Promoter per SEM's instructions. I have also been cleaning the trim pieces with their Plastic & Leather Prep beforehand. The top piece of my steering column cover was badly deteriorated from sun damage so I sourced a replacement on eBay, it was black but I cleaned it real good and then hit it with the prep spray and then the color coat and it came out great. Took 5 coats to get the saturation where I wanted it, but that's alright. I also just painted some LMR-sourced replacement scuff plates and I ordered those in scarlet red which only took 3 coats to cover.

I did a test yesterday with another can of SEM Color Coat that I had on hand, this one in Napa Red. I'm going to replace the rear package tray which on my car was just the fiber board with a coat of color on top, no carpet or upholstery covering it, I'm guessing this was factory. I sprayed a piece with Rustoleum gray primer first and then the Color Coat over top, and also sprayed a section without first applying any primer. The piece with no primer did better than the section with primer. No prep spray on this piece since it's not plastic, just fiber board. So I'm real curious what type of paint you're using for your quarter trim since I'm going to spray mine soon and they have a lot of sun damage and variation in texture and will be the most degraded plastic pieces that I've yet tried with the SEM paint.

 

[Ponyprez]

I’m replacing my dash pad and seatbelts soon. I will also be getting my front seats reupholstered and I will be removing the carpet to clean it really well. I’m also adding some speakers to the dash and sound suppression material in the floor. I will be painting the plastic interior sides in the rear. I’m hoping to have it all finished by spring.

I finally got my 90 7Up car back from upholstery shop with the new top installed, that delay in time made it much harder for me to put the TMI upholstery and foam on the drivers seat. I gutted the interior of everything shy of the dash, carpet and drivers seat before sending it out for the new top. When I put the new foam and covers on those it was about 90 degrees in my garage and the vinyl was much more cooperative than the 70 degree's I could get the garage up to two months later. I have found that the replacement upholstery for my fox is not as good a fit as the earlier Mustangs I have done and were a bit more work trying to get out the wrinkles especially in the front seats. I'm getting old and it's taken me a lot more time but this is likely the last time I do any cars. I have bought most of my supplies from LMR (Late Model Restorations) as they carry so many fox items and from my location in New Mexico I get them in two business days. Good luck with your project and I will submit some photos when I finish.

 

[One Owner 1982]

What paint are you using? I have been spraying SEM Color Coat over a medium-wet coat of their Sand Free Adhesion Promoter per SEM's instructions. I have also been cleaning the trim pieces with their Plastic & Leather Prep beforehand. The top piece of my steering column cover was badly deteriorated from sun damage so I sourced a replacement on eBay, it was black but I cleaned it real good and then hit it with the prep spray and then the color coat and it came out great. Took 5 coats to get the saturation where I wanted it, but that's alright. I also just painted some LMR-sourced replacement scuff plates and I ordered those in scarlet red which only took 3 coats to cover.

I did a test yesterday with another can of SEM Color Coat that I had on hand, this one in Napa Red. I'm going to replace the rear package tray which on my car was just the fiber board with a coat of color on top, no carpet or upholstery covering it, I'm guessing this was factory. I sprayed a piece with Rustoleum gray primer first and then the Color Coat over top, and also sprayed a section without first applying any primer. The piece with no primer did better than the section with primer. No prep spray on this piece since it's not plastic, just fiber board. So I'm real curious what type of paint you're using for your quarter trim since I'm going to spray mine soon and they have a lot of sun damage and variation in texture and will be the most degraded plastic pieces that I've yet tried with the SEM paint.

LMR color match for late model mustangs

 

[81Notch]

LMR says they use SEM toners and flexing agents so I'm guessing it is very, very similar to the SEM Color Coat product that I've been using. I don't know if you are using any bonding agent like the SEM Sand Free Adhesion Promoter but that's what I'm spraying just before the first coat of color. Evidently it allows the color to basically melt into the plastic- you spray the first coat of color while the adhesion promoter is still wet on the plastic. So far I have had really good results with it.

Please post some pics and let us know how those rear quarter panels come out after you prime and then paint again, I would like to know if that paint does any better over primer than it did on the bare plastic.

 

[One Owner 1982]

Ok will do. Im using a Rustoleum brand primer made for plastic. I’ve used it on exterior plastic like mirror housing before and it has held up well.

 

[81Notch]

Ok will do. Im using a Rustoleum brand primer made for plastic. I’ve used it on exterior plastic like mirror housing before and it has held up well.

I just called SEM technical support before placing a paint order with National Parts Depot, and asked about when to use a primer on the plastic pieces, specifically these sun-degraded rear quarter pieces. I am using the SEM Color Coat paint, but I think what you're getting from LMR is basically the same thing, that's my guess anyway since LMR says specifically that they are using SEM toners and flex agents and mixing the paint in-house. At any rate, the tech said it is not necessary to prime first but with scratched and sun-faded plastics it is a good idea to prime in order to hide some of the imperfections. However, he said NOT to use Rust-Oleum primer because it is enamel based and the SEM paint is lacquer. I ordered a can of the SEM Flexible Primer, Part# VP-4113, and will use that on these quarter panels prior to paint. This primer has a bonding agent in it, so it is not necessary to use the Sand Free Adhesion Promoter prior to the Color Coat.

I looked up the Rust-Oleum plastic primer and it is an alkyd resin type, which evidently is oil based i.e. enamel.