MakoShark72

After COMPLETELY restoring my original interior to its original dark saddle, a couple of years ago, I decided that with my Orange/Black paint scheme, the interior really needed to be BLACK...

So this past week or so, I removed the entire interior, dyed it all black, installed new black carpet, installed new leather C5 seats, and modified and installed Camaro seat/shoulder harnesses... I also fixed my clock, and better aligned all the interior pieces, installed a new parking brake seal, and replaced a temperamental power window switch...

So here we go!!!

The "old"...















Out with the OLD.....







Changing color!!!!















New carpet!!!!















Coming together!!!









C5 seats!!!!



Just trying them out!



Looks better in black!!!















New Camaro seatbelts...







Not too bad for a few days work!!

Next project....dropping this in!!

oldalaskaman

ya done good

Racer C3

It looks amazing and I agree about the new interior color looking better with the exterior color. My interior is also saddle and doesn't match the magenta exterior at all (bought it that color). Another thing that bugs me about my interior is that all the browns are different throughout the car. With you having dyed your pieces black, they'll all be the same shade. I plan to paint it orange someday, and I'll still wish the interior was black. Great job and congrats on a beautiful car.

Ron

oldsarge

Lots of work, great job, carry on !!!!!

Lupigiato

What a transformation! Great job!!

Stroh

WOW! If you did that in a couple days, you work a lot faster than I do... But seriously, that looks fantastic. Great work!

MakoShark72

About a week...

Thanks

jesse10886

love a thread full of pics

old sarge you stole this thread with that avatar pic!!!!

that looks amazing way better body match in black! great work the c5 seats do the new interior justice too! i thought the idea of c5 seats sounded crazy b/c they dont fold flat. making it harder to get to your cargo. but the steal bumper cars dont have as much room due to the awesome small window an cabin design. So on the early c3s you don't really need them to fold and seeing them in your car it looks great! congrats on a job well done

Curby

Great job. It looks great.

I have been working on my interior for the past couple of weeks. I have a dark saddle interior and was planning on going to black.

But once I started cleaning up the pieces, I started liking the dark saddle color more and more. I have just about decided to stay with the dark saddle.

I did a test spray on my console side that had been broken. The color matches my door panels perfectly. If I stay with tthe dark saddle, I won't have to spray the door panels, and that is a good thing.

I may go with my black carpet set, though.

7T1vette

I just wanted to thank Oldsarge for reminding us that it's getting close to Easter. It's a wonderful time of year, and we should appreciate all the young 'bunnies' in the neighborhood....

Now, because of Oldsarge, I look forward to most holidays. But, considering that 'Mother's Day' is up next, I'm not sure what to expect.

Lupigiato

Oldsarge treats us well. I didn't make the correlation to Easter - thought it was Hugh Hefners birthday

bkvette3

Makoshark72 - beautiful interior color transformation - compliments the orange exterior very nicely. I have no experience with interior dye and have a few questions/concerns. How does the dye hold up to normal use??? Does it eventually flake off showing the original color beneath??? How about the softer trim and seats if dyed??? Does it eventually crack and flake off??? Just wondering - Thanks BK3

*** P.S. - the C5 seats look comfy - very nice touch ***

rogman16

MakoShark--

That looks awesome, what a fantastic job... How hard was it to get the C5 seats to fit???

Rogman

75_Stinger

Great job! Hopefully I will be able to do the same thing to mine next year. Looking at houses now, it's alot easier for a longer term project like that when you have a garage and not in the parking garage of my place.

KevinG

Great work!

MakoShark72

Thanks everyone. I really LOVE the black with my paint scheme, should have done it the first time!

I used interior dye from Corvette America (I think) purchased from Willcox Corvette. I bought the dye a couple of years ago when I got the seats and carpet. We'll see how it holds up. So far so good.

If anybody is interested, I'll do a short thread on adapting the Camaro seat belts to the C3. It was fairly easy. There are threads on this but you have to search pretty extensively to find good ones with good pictures.

The C5 seats are just sitting in the car right now, that's today's project to mount them up to the C3 seat sliders. The seats are SIGNIFICANTLY lighter than the stock seats! They fit the car perfectly! I did not get motorized seats as they are cheaper without, and I saw no need to add the weight and complexity of the seat motor, for what small amount of adjustment that would be available. There are numerous threads on the Forum on adding C5 seats, but I'll probably do one also.

Thanks again for all the comments.

qwank

Hopefully not the picture of the Octo-Mom, that's been floating around the internet recently

AdamMeh

Outstanding job! I'm usually not a fan of tan interior but you did an awesome job on the initial restoration as well. The black really looks good!

Adam

Dano706

The new interior looks really nice. I think it goes a lot better with the outside color, and oldsarge, love that avatar!

mlwardle

Very nice! I'm in the process of doing the same thing. Tan interior to black on my orange 71. I actually didn't mind the tan but a PO partially converted it to black so it was easier to keep going then convert back. Did you paint the steering shaft in the car or take it out? I'm also looking for Camaro seat belts so a thread on your installation would be great!

Mark