Replacing interior-recommendations?

[IdahoKidd]

I am looking to replace the complete interior of my Orange/white 240z. Black Dragon appears to have all of the pieces in kit form. Has anyone bought one of these kits and care to comment? Any other suggestions or sources to consider?

Thanks,

Leonard

[26th-Z]

My first thought is that you are lucky to find a white interior kit. Does MSA have the kits in white? How about Eiji at Datsun Spirit? White should look real pretty. I have not used any Black Dragon kits but I'm willing to bet that they are the same kits made from the same company dating back to 1996. The same kits everyone has. They install just fine.

[WingZr0]

My first thought is that you are lucky to find a white interior kit. Does MSA have the kits in white? How about Eiji at Datsun Spirit? White should look real pretty. I have not used any Black Dragon kits but I'm willing to bet that they are the same kits made from the same company dating back to 1996. The same kits everyone has. They install just fine.

. Take it those are repros? MSA nos panels are mostly NLA. Black Dragon sells the other interior trim bits too like the headliner strips and such? Like to turn my '78 into red and black.

[hls30.com]

The kits everyone sells are made by dashtops.com. If you are buying all of the pieces, get them direct-you'll get a healthy discount below what they are available anywhere else for-and that will save you some serious money for beer and pizza for helpers, gawkers, or cheerleaders!

Give them a call for the best price, they can paint the parts(Henry Fords color as made) or you can get three cans of matching appropriately colored SEM paint, a quart of Laquer thinner, wipe them down and shoot them yourself. Shooting yourself means all pieces cam match perfectly-and even parts that are NLA can be colorized.

Will

Edited August 23, 2009 by hls30.com

[ConchZ]

I have the white interior, too. You can buy new vinyl trim and seat covers from many places. I bought mine from http://classicdatsun.com/ I bought white leather seat(they have vinyl too) covers from them, with new foam cushions. The covers were too tight for me to get over the cushions myself, though. I took the seats to a local shop, in order to get them right. Cost me a couple hundred more to have them put on correctly. They told me when I bought them that I probably couldn't do it myself, but I had to try it to believe it. I also bought new vinyl, including the headliner. I am very happy with the vinyl pieces, which I did install myself. It takes several tries to get the shock tower vinyl to look right, but you can do it.

I did not buy new door panels, as mine were good. My door panels and plastic parts just needed to be painted with SEM's Super White Interior Paint, which you can buy from Eastwood. You can fix small cracks in the plastic with epoxy/fiberglass layers on the backside. If you get the crack fit back together perfectly, the SEM paint on the front side will cover it. For the chrome strips on your doors and boomerangs, use Almost Chrome spray from Eastwood. Don't get in a hurry to use it if you spray the Super White first, as the SEM paint needs to be cured over 72hrs before you want to mask it off to spray the Almost Chrome on the strips. Even then, use the gentle blue tape from Home Depot. FYI - the Almost Chrome takes even longer to cure hard enough to put masking tape on it.

When painting the doors and plastic panels, surface prep is very important. There's going to be years of Armor All on them that will repel your new paint. Liberal use of SEM's Plastic Prep and Sand Free products are important. Just follow the directions.

Sorry I don't have any pictures of a finished interior, as mine isn't finished. It would be, but some problems with the exterior paint have popped up, and the car has gone back to the paint shop before I could put it all back together. Most of it is done, and I can say that its going to look great. I also can say from how rough I've treated the SEM painted panels that the paint holds up good once its cured about a week, provided you did proper surface prep. Its even easy to clean your dirty fingerprints off your painted door panels. I do have some before/after shots of some interior parts.

The above being said, I have to comment that I found all of the above by searching this site. I also found how to remove my dash and repair cracks in it. This site is a great resource, as I've found nearly everything I needed to know by searching it.

Edited August 23, 2009 by ConchZ

[IdahoKidd]

Hey, thanks for the info. I will check into these. Part of my problem is that some of the molded plastic pieces are so brittle they literally shatter when handled and I need the actual piece now. ConchZ, my pieces are faded out like the ones in your pics. Years ago there was interior paint available but it was just junk so I was skeptical. I like your confidence in the stuff to give it a shot.

As for searching. I have searched a lot and found a lot of information. Nothing at all is available on the product recommendations page. Searches: Perhaps I am doing something wrong or there is a simpler way, but when searching for two words together, "white interior" for example, or "black dragon", I get every post that has each of the two words and the search becomes overwhelming. Is there a simple way to get a series of words to come up together? "Aluminum flywheel" comes to mind. Thanks,

Leonard

[ConchZ]

It can be challenging to get results from a search. I've noticed that the site's search engine does understand most industry standard search engine tricks. Using them will help you narrow the results. Those tricks only work if the thread authors spell the words in their thread correctly. Sometimes narrowing a search doesn't work as well as you might think. For example, +"Black Dragon" will not return a thread where the author combined it into just one word, "Blackdragon", or didn't capitalize the B and/or D. You might get better results by simply searching for replacement vinyl.

While I waited for my car to get back from paint and body, I think I read nearly every thread on the site dealing with interiors. At least the ones that interested me, that is. I also talked with Les at ClassicDatsun. Their prices are a bit higher than BD or MSA, but I'll pay their prices because they are willing to provide some tech support.

On this site, you will find how to restore your steering wheel, your center console, your dash, your seats, and your vinyl. I've done all of those things. The results were good, although I'm not happy with my dash restoration. Its not the fault of the instructions, but more because the dash is now cracking in another spot, right over the glove box. I can't yet tell if the crack is only in the paint/texture, or if its deeper, so I'm waiting to see how far it goes. I'm betting it's in the paint/texture, and is because of poor surface prep on my part. I may have missed a spot while cleaning it up prior to painting...