interior color change using SEM color coat system

[qz16]

My son and I are restoring a 1973 240z.  We are converting the interior from “tan/brown” to black.  We will be replacing the seat foam and vinyl, and the headliner with new material.  I am planning to use the SEM Color Coat system for the remaining plastic and vinyl pieces including the door cards. 

 

There are a number of choices and I do not have the experience to know how subtle or substantial the differences are within the color coat system.

SEM offers: 

landau black #15013, gloss black #15233, satin black #15243,

high gloss clear #13003, satin gloss clear #13013, and low luster clear #13023.

 

Does anyone have experience with these variants?  Which in your opinion most closely resembles the original Datsun appearance?  Does landau black require a clear to protect it?

 

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

Ron Q.

[qz16]

In addition to my post here I did send an email to SEM Products.  Talk about responsive.  One of their specialists got back to me almost immediately.  While he was not able to answer which product would most closely resemble the original appearance he did clear up a couple of questions.  Here is his response.

Thanks for your interest in SEM Products. You choice for a black will be determined by gloss level. Landau Black  is our most common interior black, it is a semi-gloss. Another choice is 15243 Satin Black, a little less gloss.

None of our Color Coat aerosols, including Landau Black, require a clear coat unless it is necessary to adjust gloss.

[siteunseen]

I had a 240 with SEM white, I'll guess it was satin but it looked fantastic.

 

[qz16]

I like the interior.  How old was the SEM interior at the time of this picture.  Is that the original dash? 

[siteunseen]

That was about 3 years ago, a photo from when I was selling it.  The OE white had turned to more of a butterscotch color.  There was a few small places under the console close to the radio that didn't get the newer look.  Yep that's the original dash but it had two cracks up top that had been filled with a low sheen silicone type caulk.  Looked pretty good too.  I wish like hell I still had that car.  The prices have gone up so much since I sold it for $6,000 I could get $12,000 at least today.  3 car garage with all Zs in there.  My daily car baked in the sun outside.  I went to church one Father's Day soaked with sweat.  I swore then one had to go!  Looking back I would have been better off adding on to my garage.

Edited December 3, 2018 by siteunseen

[Mark Maras]

1 hour ago, siteunseen said:

Yep  Looking back I would have been better off adding on to my garage.

 

 It's not too late. 

[grannyknot]

@qz16,  I have gone through a dozen odd cans of SEM of Landau Blk and  Super white,  landau is the closest black you'll find to the dash and console.  I have used it on plastic as well as vinyl with excellent results, be sure to use their Plastic adhesion promoter on the hard plastics.      A light coat of their semi gloss clear on the vinyl gives it just a bit of shine, too much and it looks like it has been painted. All of these pics are freshly painted but dried, and it has held up well over the years.

 

Edited December 4, 2018 by grannyknot

[qz16]

grannyknot - this is great - thanks for the pictures.  Good to see that you were able to use the same product on the vinyl and plastic as well as the steel upper dashboard finisher (not sure what its real name is) 2nd from last picture.  thanks for the tip on the clear.  BTW - looks like a great job.

[grannyknot]

Thanks, pay close attention to their directions, when they say apply a 2nd or 3rd coat within 5-10 min of the last coat they mean it, otherwise you need to wait 7 days for it to fully cure before you can reapply.  The clear they want you to apply within a couple of min. of the last coat so the two coats merge.

The steel upper dash finisher,  it looks like a Klingon Batliff to me so that's what I call it.

[Captain Obvious]

bat'leth

http://www.startrek.com/database_article/batleth

And just from the category of "Good to know":

United States[edit]

The legality of the bat'leth in the United States differs between states. In 2009, a bat'leth was used in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in two armed robberies.^[30] The Colorado Springs Police Department said that it was a deadly weapon.^[21][36] In New Jersey, bat'leths are considered weapons and are liable to be seized. The Federal Bureau of Investigation discovered and seized a bat'leth as part of a cache of weapons in connection with a $4 million Medicare fraud investigation in 2010.^[37]

[jonathanrussell]

I used SEM Landau Black on my 72 240 this past summer. The sheen looks identical to me to the original interior in my 24k mile other 240z. One thing I found though is that the product is very sensitive to humidity when applying. For me, if I sprayed on a humid day the sheen would turn flat. If I remember correctly I needed to stay below 65% or so relative humidity to get what I thought was the intended sheen for Landau Black...and what I wanted. Finding low humidity days in the summer in Atlanta was a challenge. Got it done though and it looks great.

 

[qz16]

So, I thought it would be a good idea to update the thread regarding the change of interior color.

I must admit that I was leery of changing the color of vinyl with a paint/dye.  Our vinyl was in fairly good shape and it is quite expensive to replace all of the vinyl and plastic, so I thought it would certainly be worth a try.  After a reasonable amount of research, I decided to use the SEM product line.  I also decided for once in my life to strictly follow SEM’s process.  I had two pieces of vinyl that were damaged through exposure to the sun.  But even these pieces turned out well, and I do not think it was purely due to the fact that I was going from tan to black.  I think the result would have been just as good if I repainted them in the tan color.

Anyway, the result was truly amazing.  Every vinyl piece came out looking brand new.  It is nearly impossible to tell that they have undergone a restoration and a color change.  Yes, there may be a seam that if pulled when installing might show the original color.  I plan to touch up these spots after I install the interior.  You can avoid this possibility by spraying the back of the material at least on the seams.  I did have a spot or two where there are cuts/splits in the vinyl, and one very small hole.  I simply took some black vinyl and superglued it on the back of the piece.  I did this for two reasons: to reinforce the area so the cut/split did not grow and in case the material was pulled during installation it would merely expose the added black vinyl.  Once these areas were painted, I could not spot them easily.

The plastic trim was in relatively good shape considering that it is 45+ years old.  One of my rear quarter pieces had been hacked up by a previous owner who was attempting some ridiculous change to the speaker areas using a machete.  A replacement panel came with the car so I used that.  A few other panels had chips where material was missing.  These few areas were of the 1- 2 sq. in. category.  Some panels had cracks, mostly at the edge of the panel, some minor and some more considerable, but all required attention or the crack would have continued to grow.  I found a product called Q-Bond.  It is an interesting process.  For a crack I cut a “V” groove in the back of the plastic and cleaned the area around the crack.  They give you what seems to be a graphite like powder.  You sprinkle the powder into the grove.  Since it is primarily the back I sprinkled it liberally around the groove as well.  If the crack cannot be completely closed in the front of the panel you place a piece of tape on the front covering the cracked area.   I used yellow tape that I have experience with from painting a car.  It sticks well, but can easily be removed and has never damaged an area that I have used it on.  The graphite like material can’t fall through the crack because of the tape.  Q-Bond also provides what they call super-glue.  Looks just like what you buy in the hardware store.  You dribble a few drops on top of the graphite that is mounded on the back of the crack.  It seeps in and sets up in less than 30 seconds.  I gave it a few hours and then sanded the front of the panel to insure that the filling was level with the front surface.  We painted the panel with the SEM product and where it was just a crack you could not tell that anything had been done.  The crack line looked like it was part of the original pattern on the plastic. 

Where major repair was required, I used J_B weld to fill a missing area. The J-B weld patch as well as any other areas on the front of the panel that needed to be sanded were rendered flat with no grain.  I tried scribing lines with a pin in some thin putty but this wound up looking like scratches.   I have read about graining pads, but I think they perform better on vinyl/leather than a hard plastic panel.  I decided to use a textured paint from SEM.  This will not imitate grain, but I thought it would be better than leaving it flat.  You don’t have a lot of control other than varying the distance of the nozzle from your work to produce less texture.  I lightly sanded the texture and tried to blend it into the original grain.  I then repainted the panel to get a consistent color.  Its not perfect but if you are not looking for it you can’t spot it and the panel is repaired.  Where I was missing a lot of material, I added some plastic pieces cut from the panel that I replaced.  I super glued these to the back of the panel I was repairing and then used JB-Weld to bring the repair level with the rest of the panel’s surface.  This also worked really well.  Its strong, but it is ugly.  Once again, I used the texture and sanded it and then painted the entire panel.  It will not pass concourse inspection but it definitely is cheaper than replacing the panel, and it is a sound repair and it is another piece of authenticity - a 45 year old piece of trim that looks pretty good.

As an example this is the vinyl that covers the rear shock tower.  It has been cleaned with a mild soap, and Scrubbed with a gray scotch brite pad using SEM soap.  You can see signs of fading from the sun.

Here is one of the shock tower vinyl sections painted.

 

 Plastic panels - this is the interior overhead where the dome light mounts in the middle.  I was amazed at how nicely the plastic and the vinyl cleaned up.

 

This is one of the rear hatch area panels.  It installs behind the rear wheel.  It had some cracking and it also had a missing section around one of the mounting holes.
The first picture shows all of the repair work - cracks at edges and the missing section around one of the mounting holes.

The picture below show the panel after paint has been applied.  You can see the patch area.  The only issue with this panel is the total lack of grain in the repair area.  It was noticeable and so I pushed on.

Here is the my first crude attempt at trying to see if I could imprint some grain.  This looks awful here but it was even worse when color was applied.

The next picture is of the panel with everything having been sanded.  It has the benefit of the texture paint having been applied, and color over that.

 

The rest of the plastic and vinyl came out even better and I was very satisfied that we were able to save so much of the original car.  Can't wait to see all of the vinyl and the trim panels go back in the car.  Unfortunately, I completely rewired all of my electrical harness, and don't want to assemble the interior until after I test everything.  Testing the harness is waiting on a new dash.  Early on in the restoration I tried repairing the dash, but it crumbled and my total lack of expertise inspired me to try wrapping the skeleton with vinyl.  Twice I thought I was going to get away with it but alas the speedometer and the tachometer wells could not be done by me to my satisfaction.  I then searched for someone in need of some extra cash but every shop that I went to said that it was so difficult that they would have to charge enough to fund their son's first year at Harvard.  Next step on the road to wasting a fortune was a full cap.  I would have stuck with the cap, but this car is for my son, and I worried that the cap would not do well in the cold climate that he lives in.  The overall restoration is coming out pretty good and to be honest the cap just didn't match what we were able to achieve with the rest of the car.  I am currently on a wait list for a replacement dash pad.

products that we used:
1.  Gray Scotch Brite pads
2.  Dawn dish soap
3.  SEM Soap
4.  Vinyl/leather prep or plastic Prep
5.  SEM Sand Free (adhesion promoter)
6.  SEM Color Coat Satin Black
7.  Q-Bond
8.  J-B Weld

The following URL is valuable in terms of a reference for the SEM products that you will need and the overall process.

https://www.semproducts.com/product/color-coattm-mixing-system/system#product-videos  I suggest you watch the video.

I also watched this video.  Their humor is a bit tiring but I found it before the SEM youtube and it encouraged me to give it a try.
episode 128 Dyeing Door Panels and dash pads Autorestomod.

Bottom line:  If you are thinking about refreshing your plastic interior trim or your vinyl – DO NOT hesitate The SEM process works, at least if you diligently follow their instructions.  They have a complete line of colors and you can even mix a color to match something.  If you have plastic that needs repair within reason you can successfully restore your plastic panel cracks with Q-Bond.  I am sure that there are other products out there that work just as well but I have not tried them and because these have worked so well for me I probably will not experiment with anything else in the future.  The one thing that I do want to try is grain imprinting using those grain pads.

Hope this helps.

 

Edited January 10, 2019 by qz16
delete extra phots