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HomeTech Articles > Starting the Project

Guest Technical Article:

Interior Restoration:
Starting the Project
Tom Sharpes
toms@pneudraulics.com

[Click on Image to Enlarge]

This project started as a simple observation - my drivers seat has a few rips in it, I think I'll look into fixing it. My first venture into this was to check out the usual suspects of the upholstery crowd.

I  was very surprised when I found out that even the recovering kits that are sold in vinyl are almost $500 ! Leather is easily twice that price. This is if your going to do it yourself ! Labor  to have them recover your seats is $250 TO $300 and then there is shipping - I didn't get that far !  I was admiring my sheepskin seat covers and thinking they weren't all THAT bad.

I had been keeping an eye  on Rennlist parts want ads when I came across one for a complete seat of perfect black leather seats. I emailed the guy for some pictures and found out that he was only a 40 minute drive from where I live. I went over took a look at the seats and as he said they were perfect and so $700 lighter I left with my  new interior - so I thought !

OK, so now I have these great looking BLACK seats and a BROWN interior ! The existing brown carpet in my car was in very good shape and I looked into dyeing it black but it doesn't work very well and looks crappy so I started shopping for carpeting. Let's see, the same people that have the expensive  upholstery also have EXPENSIVE carpet - funny how that works.

When I did the recovering of my Targa top the guy at Original Fit Interiors sent me a carpet sample card with my top material. Looking at that I gave him a call and found that he had complete carpet sets cut and bound to fit my 74 in stock and was dramatically less expensive than anyone else - $200 for everything. I ordered the carpet on Tuesday morning and it arrived at my work on Wednesday afternoon. When I installed it every piece fit exactly like the original and it looks and feels great !

This project included a number of sub-projects to accomplish the complete restoration. In this project file I have divided them up so that you will be able to review any portion by itself or go through the entire project as a whole.

Old Interior
Removal of Old Interior
Reupholstering
Carpet Installation
Completed Interior

Comments and Suggestions:
bavaria911Comments: Great tech tip. I want to create my own RS door panels, can you provide how to create the door pulls and leather opener? How do they hook-up behind the door panel?
Also, when using the electric stapler the $20 model must one be concerned with the staple going thru the hard amterial and thru the material leather on the front side?
Thanks,
Bavaria911
November 1, 2009

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