Big Sky Euro

I just picked up a black carpet from a fellow texer to replace my tan and I am going to recover my headliner, A, B, C pillars and door inserts. Anybody else have any advice? On the vortex I pretty much get ignored...

You might check with a stereo install place, sometimes they have a variety of interior fabrics.

now, what are you wanting to do? you are replacing your carpet, and then want to cover the rest, or you are using the carpet you got to cover everything....I have done some interior and upholstery work, I might be able to help......

MikeWire wrote:I just picked up a black carpet from a fellow texer to replace my tan and I am going to recover my headliner, A, B, C pillars and door inserts. Anybody else have any advice? On the vortex I pretty much get ignored...

LOL - sorry for that poor description, it was the end of the day...Ok, so I am swapping out my carpet from tan to black. Then I am going to recover my interior with some material I have yet to pick out - maybe suede, maybe an OEM fabric from an upholstery shop ($$!!?) - something black. I have seen this on the vortex but everyone seems to copy each other there anyway and I get mixed messages. As I understand the glue should me the 3M Super 90 or similar and you can cover over the original fabric(?)...any advice?

If you can, I would try to remove the factory fabric, but if it is really nastily stuck on there(which I believe it is....) then you may be able to use the 3M super 77 or 90. I believe the 90 is the foamy orange stuff, which I have used also. I prefer super77, but if it is not sticking then try the 90. You want to make sure that you mask off ANYTHING that you do not want to get glue on. Once you hit it with that stuff, it's done. I have it on my pants, hats, shirts, all over the place. It's amost as bad as fiberglas resin! As for the fabris, you are going to want something that has a bit of stretch to it, so that you don't have to do any cutting and sewing, because if you are like me, you can't sew! Depending on the material, suede may have enough stretch, but I am not sure. If you use fabric, I would spray glue both of the pieces you are sticking together, and if you can, hot glue the edges of the material on the underside of the trim piece. Anyway, LMK if you have any other questions! (or if you need a custom leather interior for the Jetta.......)

I see a lot of people on the tex have used some type of "burberry" fabric which seems to be like a synthetic suede. I just haven't found the right fabric yet, but that type of material might be ok. What have you used in the past?

MikeWire wrote:What have you used in the past?

It depends on what you are trying to cover, I have used vinyl, leather, cloth, trunk liner carpet, speaker box carpet, and in a couple of cases, I have used speaker grille cloth for certain things. Are you covering your headliner in suede, or cloth? I would match the pillars in whatever you cover the headliner in.

Well I went to the fabric stores last night and found some suede that was really nice, but no black. There was some rubberized vinyl that wouldn't be too bad, but I prefer to have a little bit of a softer feel to the interior, so I need to keep looking. I won't pay $54/yard for OE auto upholstery unless I really have to - I'm fine with ~$20. I should be getting the carpet in the mail soon so the interior project will begin.

Yeah, if you measure it out, well enough, you may not even need more than 1 yard for the pillar covers, etc. But if you are covering the headliner also, then you will need more than that, obviously. That is the nice thing about fabric, is the bolt is usually 4-5 feet wide, gettin you 12-15 sq feet per yard. I hate having leftover stuff that I will never use again. It is like money just sitting there that didn't need to be spent.....