It does look real nice, and you are right heating this stuff up makes it much easier. I think i may do my downtubes today.

 

be careful on those.. they are a b****. I found using a 4" dough scraper out of my kitchen works great (basically a 4" wide piece of fairly stiff plastic/rubber material, flexes enough to fit most curves and applies nice even pressure, stretching it evenly and only where it needed to be stretched) also, don't worry if you mess up the bottom .5-1" of the tubes just a little. I ad a little "pinching" of material down there, but it was covered up by the venter console overlay thingy when i re-assembled it, so its completely out of vision.



and here is the STEERING WHEEL!!!!! <- very easy to do and i like it a lot.

 

heating it up does make it easier btw, but the best (abit slightly painful) way to do it is done a pair of thin gloves ( i used my mountain biking gloves) and actually work on the vinyl while under constant direct heat. my fingertips still hurt a bit from the heat damage though, but thats because half the time i didn't use the gloves. but if you do that instead of heating it up then trying to work on it really fast, it makes stretching it over the turns and corners SOOOOO much easier and cleaner.

 

Sorry !! first time with vinyl..
Do u need to spray water on the piece to stretch the vinyl?, or heat gun is fine .

To do the dash , what if i don't remove them . Will it come out nice?

 

umm, id remove them, you cant really get the vinyl all the way into the corners if you don't remove them, plus, if you don't wrap it over the edges a good bit, first good summer (or freeze) the vinyls will change shape and come undone. Stretching it over the sides and around will ensure that it doesn't at least come completely off. I'm probably going to have to re-do my far left air vent because I didn't do this enough for the vent area, and its messing up a little bit (it was the first piece i did, and i learned from my mistake. The other side is just fine) also, i didn't use water when i did mine, as it comes adhesive backed, and i figured the water would mess with that.

 

Hey soccerbummer, when you did the steering wheel, did you apply the Carbon Vinyl on with heat, formed it and then cut it right on the steering wheel? Did you have to remove anything?

 

You should look at doing your tacho as well, that would look awesome with the rest of it

 

no, those rings actually come poff. there is a screw on the back side of each one, and a little slit at the bottom to put a small flat head in to pop them off.

for this vinyl you really need to wrap it all the way around the edges of the surface and to the back side to make sure it holds well, as it will try to go back to its original form during the summer.

but yes, i applied it with head.
I also made sure to match the weave pattern on the top of the 2 pieces. (the shape of these pieces prevents it from being possible to have it match on the top and bottom, as they are at a slant, and for best results, the material has to "twist" when it goes around the rounded corners.

does the back of the tach come off?
if so then ill probably do it :P

 

looks amazing soccerbummer you have inspired me to do mine lol just wondering how to do go about doing the dash pieces with the vents in them do you start with the middle and work out? if that makes any sense? also any one know of any uk sellers and how much should i order so i can do down tubes and dash?

danny

 

Finished these up for GoKaht today...

Phone case
Toll Road Easy Pass
OEM Coin Cup
3 Spoke Multifunction Wheel Covers.

 

Where can you find this vinyl!!??? This looks SICK

 

How hard is it to do this? i mean wrapping it around curves bends and edges? Looks great but my cousin did something similar and it was difficult to get corners and what not.

 

Hey so i havent found out how to remove the dash pieces yet!

i already have the middle part out, i just need to remove the vent rings, the piece behind the gauge, and the airbag piece

 

Just bought some 3m carbon fiber from MetroDecals stuff looks great..
I would like to know how to take apart the dash trim

 

http://www.mini2.com/forum/faq.php?f...line_interrior

 

How does the airbag piece on the passenger side dash come off? there were some cloth straps on it holding it to the dash whats the deal with those?

 

Disconnect battery first.

If I remember correctly, the straps are looped at the ends and a steel rod goes thru the stitched loops. The rod fastened to the dash frame with two large bolts. Remove the bolts and slide the bar out releasing the straps which are attached to the dash piece.

 

Sooo the bar u were talking about can only be reached by taking the top piece of the dash off, i cant get to it just by popping the plastic piece up?

 

 

is there a special technique on how to go about that, does it just pull up or what, and while im in there i have a nasty rattle that comes form underneath that in the front, any ideas on how to remedy that?

 

Looks great! Sure beats that faux metal finish in my 02.

 

So is this stuff actual carbon fiber or just a a look-a-like? It it woven material or print? Did you guys order the 3m stuff, or the stuff from drycarbonwrap.com? How is it holding up? Thanks for the help.

 

i had to buy a new set of checkered rear view mirror covers because mine were turning yellow, so i took the old ones and vinyl wrapped them.

This is the hardest piece to do, bar none, and requires a lot of time and patience as well as a lot of stretching under constant direct heat. I did this the night before last and my hands are still supersensitive to heat, and my fingertips still are raw.


here it is though!

 

those mirrors look great. I was thinking of doing the same but im lazy now and just ended up buying a set of mirror bras lol.. i wanna do my downtubes sometime though.

 

I'm confused. In the pics where the dash is laid out it looks like the 2002-2004 dash with the extra ac vent piece, but where it's installed it's the 2005+ dash.