Well, I said I'd be done by April, and as usual I missed the deadline. I am about 90% there so I thought I'd pass along some of my ideas. Keep in mind, nothing is permanent, and I often try things out just for the fun of it. The basic theme includes the use of perforated black Alcantara on the door panels/center console lid, coupled with Pat Scorzetti's torch red hydrocarbon treatment down the center of the cockpit. Splashes of silver emblems, chrome *****, speaker grill hatpins, red-stitched grab handles, shift/parking brake boots and visor covers were utilized as accents. I also made one of my C5 logo designs into a copper piece for contrast and placed it on the traction control bezel which was painted metallic black. Remaining work should soon be completed on door panel armrests and a custom shift ****. Here are some pics:

 

Lookin good!

 

 

All I can say is DAMN!!

 

I like the red stitched seats.

 

Lookin very sharp gotta love it

 

Hi There;
Very Very nice dude!
robsc501

 

Beautiful, may I ask how did you do the suede door panels?

 

Extremely nice

You'll be taking home trophies for sure

Thanks,Matt

 

Looks awesome Jerry

 

What a stunning make over, I like what you have done

 

It's not that hard, just a little scary at first. I will assume you already know how to remove the door panels. Once off you will see how the top and bottom pieces are hot welded together. you'll see a series of small posts that have been melted down to hold the 2 sections together. I simply reversed the process. Use a soldering gun with a big tip and hold it on each post until it softens. Apply a force to separate the joint each time then move on to the next. Don't breath the fumes. I made little wedges to force the halves apart while I held the heat tool.

Once you have the bottom off there are several recovering methods that have appeared on the forum, but I had terrible luck with stapling. I finally switched to a hot melt gun and it was easy as pie. I then converted everything to industrial strength velcro, instead of hot welding it all back together....no problems so far and if I want to in the future I can sell the door bottoms separately. They represent a lot of work applying the alcantara.

To cover a panel....

Get some spray adhesive and coat the entire stock surface well. Precut the material to about 3-4 inches wider than necessary and lay it on the adhesive, smooth it out, then go along the edges on the backside with the glue gun. The corners are the hardest areas because of the folds that occur, but once you master one you can do the others easily. Remove the excess in the red reflector holes to retain proper fit for the reflectors.

I bought just 1 yard of material and I did the center console lid and both door bottoms and both door handles; and I have a lot of material left over for any other ideas that come along. The trick is to make a pattern and lay it on the material in such a way as to minimize waste. The console piece started out at 14x20 inches off of one corner.

Be prepared to burn a finger or two, suffer a few razor blade cuts, and maybe even glue a couple fingers together

Best of luck and post pics when you do it!

 

thanks Pat, you know you played a big part in this! Beautiful stuff you did for me.

 

Your interior looks fantastic. Nice job tying it all together.

 

Looks like you put a lot of hours in on this winter project and in turned out great.

 

where did you get these emblems?

 

No more parking next to you at judged car shows. Stunning job!

Call me for lunch.

 

Thanks Randy...that's funny! Yes, we will meet soon at Leo's or equivalent....I like to see the car when I'm dining!

 

Thanks for the instructions, could you PM me the source of the Alcantara?

 

Jason, this is just one of many ideas I had for the bose replacement. ...I got to thinking many of us hate the bose system so why promote it. It is a hatpin, but I made/bought a bunch of other ones...next time the door panel is off I am changing to musical themed pins such as a BB King one I got from him backstage, or a musical staff I made out of red wire (my favorite), Ace of diamonds/hearts, Fender guitar pins, etc polished bose looks nice too instead of the dull brushed look...I'll take some pics soon. BTW, it is impossible to flatten the indent in the screen...I tried it and it started to deform bigtime.

Jerry