Hello guys im thinking of redoing my whole interior in glassfiber, to get a more smooth and even texture of the whole cabine. My thought were to do it on all the artificial leather such as door panels, side panels in the rear, and the one around headunit/ steering wheel etc. following the i would have it all color coated.

my question is as following, is this something that can be done easily, or is it so much work that i should just keep dreaming about it rather than try?

 

anything is possible with the right amount of cash. but it would be alot to do all that though, unless you can do all your own , id say youd be looking into 3-5K for the job

 

yea well im pretty handy, when it comes to doing it on my own, and have some friends who have been working with glass fiber alot, so it's mostly materials i would be looking to buy.I did all my mods myself so far.. :D

 

From my understanding with fiberglass, it is a PITA, but doable. But as light as fiberglass is, it would be a lot heavier than the fake leather. In the end, you would have a very smooth surface painted to whatever color though. How would you do this anyway? Would you just overlay the fiberglass on top of everything?

You would be doing a layer of a sort of epoxy, then the woven fiberglass, then more epoxy, etc... That means it is wet and difficult to work with. Then sand it smooth and paint after it dries. You would likely have to remove each panel and overlay the fiberglass, then re install...fitting everything back could also be an issue since the panels would be thicker than before. Unless you are going to make a mold from the panels and then recreate the panels with fiberglass...if you did that, you would be refabricating the majority of the interior. If you were going to do the dash or something like that, I would say that could be a doable interesting project, but the whole interior may be a bit too much to take on without a lot of experience...not to mention the whole body itching that would ensue after the sanding!

Starting with a small part like the dash would be a good start and then you would know whether you would want to do that to the rest of the interior.

What color would you use?

 

For the hard plastic textured pieces like the door panels and seatbacks, I wonder if you could get the smooth/painted look with a combination of sanding the panels and applying an adhesion promoter and several layers of high-build and then topping it all off with standard automotive basecoat/clearcoat? You wouldn't have any panel fitment problems, and it would probably be a lot easier than glassing everything.

 

True, If you painted them, it wouldn't matter what was underneath the paint as long as it was done right.

 

Well my first instint was to just do it on top of the panels, but you might be right about the fitment, im just scared that if i only paint it, i wont get the smooth surface as i want.. I would either paint it the vehicle color(silver) or go with a high gloss black. havent decided yet..
Either way i can get a really good price on the paint job as i have a good friend who does this stuff, i only paid 60$ for having my rims molded up and painted.

 

Well, I don't think sanding and priming the factory panels to a smooth finish is going to be any harder than getting a smooth finish out of Fiberglas, but if it doesn't work out, you'll know it before you lay the colour coat down, and at that point, you can go to plan B (either glassing over the factory panels, or using the factory panels as molds to make glass replacements.)

Also, keep in mind that unless you *never* have passengers/luggage/cargo in the back of your car, the seatbacks and the side panels in the rear can take a pretty good beating, so a glossy finish might be hard to maintain.

 

Hehe yea, you a right about the maintaining, tho my car to me is what cake is to a fat kid, so im pretty carefull as it is. heh but then again you can never prevent it from happening.. :s

 

Agreed. Fiberglass is not smooth and will need a couple of filler coats to get to a smooth surface, then body-work style painting. Starting wit hthe existing door panels will get you most of the way there w/o as much fabrication.

I have a couple of DIY books about custom interiors. It's not rocket science, but it is tedious work with a lot trial and error - especially for a beginner.

"Custom Auto Interiors" by Don Taylor is a good book for getting an idea of what is involved:

http://www.amazon.com/Custom-Auto-In...947742&sr=1-19

 

great thanks alot.. :d