Re-dying automotive carpet, does anybody have any experience with this?

Let's for a moment assume that I may have a line on a pretty rare Miata interior (everything except the seats) and the carpet on the parcel shelf is pretty faded.

None of the usual suspects stock this particular carpet, so to restore it I'd probably end up having to redye the parcel shelf carpet.

Does anybody have any experience with redyeing automotive carpet so it feels like automotive carpet afterwards? I'd rather not rattlecan it .

Yes. I used RIT dye diluted with water in a spray bottle. Works great and doesn’t make the carpet unduly stiff. 

My buddy used the Plasti-coat or VHT or whatever Vatozone was selling 20 years ago to dye green Charger carpet that he put in his 68 Roadrunner. Dyed it black. It's still black today.

Appleseed said:

My buddy used the Plasti-coat or VHT or whatever Vatozone was selling 20 years ago to dye green Charger carpet that he put in his 68 Roadrunner. Dyed it black. It's still black today.

I used that stuff to turn the stained tan carpet in the E30 black. Took several coats and lots of brushing in between to get the stuff down between the fibers, but the result looked good. No comment on longevity, though, as I sold the car before I ever really used it.

I've used SEM vinyl dye mixed at the local paint store shot with a paint gun. Brush one direction so fibers are all facing one direction & shoot light coat, brush at 90 degrees & shoot, repeat, repeat, let thoroughly dry, vacuum & reinstall carpet.

I’ve SEM painted the trim carpets that weren’t easily sourced.  It came out 85% perfect...  I like it but glad it’s detail bits not the whole thing.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

I forgot to ask, what do people like to use to repaint interior plastics? In this case, a colour change would be necessary.

I usually use PPG DBI for nice jobs. The DBI is a single stage for interiors which doesn't require clear coat. Here's a color change on '71 door panels. Interior had been spray bombed a couple times previously along with using sheet rock screws through door cards etc.   Soda blasted the old paints off, repaired cracks & holes, adhesion promoter, SEM texture spray for original appearance, PPG DBI paint.  Be careful doing anything with original interior panels because there's a high probability someone at some time used Armorall or a similar product on the plastic and it's imperative that you get it perfectly removed.

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John - That looks amazing!  What'd you do to repair it?

I've used the rattle can duplicolor vinyl dye on my old 86 Rx-7's grey plastic interior to turn it black.  Like John mentioned, I scrubbed the crap outta with alcohol to remove the old junk and clean it up before doing it.  It held up well for the 3 years before I sold it, though some of the high-wear items (like the plastic running board under the door that gets stepped on) started to rub off a bit.  I just hit it with a bit more to touch it up and it was fine again.

Edit:  I should add that if you're trying to re-dye an early Miata's "Camel" tan, the recommendation is to use SEM's Camel #15173.  I have a can, but I haven't gotten to the interior restoration part of my 91 BRG, so I can't personally attest to it.

WonkoTheSane said:

John - That looks amazing!  What'd you do to repair it?

I do plastic repairs (interior & exterior) fairly regularly so I have a bunch of different tools and products most people wouldn't keep on hand because of cost. Started doing more plastic fabrication so I recently got a resistance heater so I can bend pieces up to 4' wide and eventually want to get a nitrogen welder. I typically work on 60's-80's cars so the plastic is old and interior pieces have often been gouged, cracked, screwed, and burned up by the sun causing chalking. Additionally some have "screw tabs" that need to be repaired or replaced so they have to be made from scratch sort of.

Before doing anything with any type of plastic,vinyl, endura etc. it's very important to clean it thoroughly to remove any traces of wax, dirt, grease, tar, almorall or other types of contaminants that could prevent adhesion of repair or paint materials. Lacquer thinner, wax & grease remover, dish soap, and other things can be used depending on the material the piece is made of. I use wax & grease remover last before any abrasives or repairs are done . Put it on with a small very wet rag and use a dry one to remove it.

Materials, tools, and techniques used vary depending on the particular piece & damage. Other than typical hand tools a heat gun and a hot stapler are often used. For off the shelf  materials I frequently use panel bond, 3M soft plastic repair, 3M hard plastic repair, various SEM textures in spray cans, adhesion promoter, PPG K36 with toner used as a sealer, PPG DP48L epoxy primer, PPG K38 primer, PPG Omni primer, and every once in a while I use a Eastwood vinyl repair kit that comes with about a dozen different sheets of various grains to match certain vinyl textures.  Here's a few pics of stuff

Hot stapler which can be used with several different sizes, thickness, and shape staples. I also use it when making new screw tabs for bumper covers etc.  Second pic shows staples used to stich a civic bumper cover where reinforcement bar end ripped through, heat gun also required to reshape damaged area prior to stapling. After stapling 3M flexible repair material then prime, paint.

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I took a bunch of pics of a job I did repairing wheel flares (hard plastic) spoiler (soft plastic) and a Endura (rubber) bumper for someone so here's some pics from it. I didn't have the car, the parts were shipped to me so I had the guys at the local paint suply shoot a piece with their camera for color match. Customers wife took a pic of them when he was installing them to show me the color match looked nice. Interior panels can be repaired the same way but use thinner hot staples.

Hard plastic repairs of wheel flares.

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Wow John, that was an awesome overview.. Thanks for putting it together.  I've glued plenty of metal and fiberglass together, but I've never played with the dark art of plastics.  You make it look easy :)

It's more time consuming IMO. As an example there's over 40 hours total in the Trans Am bumper I showed. Even the Civic bumper cover in the first couple pics wasn't really worth fixing. On the actual job for that car I used an aftermarket bumper cover because it was cheaper than the time necessary to fix. I only fixed it when I had a bit of free time so I could take repair pics and then sold it (at a loss) on CL in primer to cover some of the time & materials used fixing it.

Materials are also more expensive than you'd use on fiberglass and metal also. Using the same Trans Am bumper as an example there's about $75.00 in repair materials before paint on a bumper most would've called excellent to start with. I used a bit over a cartridge of 3M flex repair material and the Endura bumpers can not be primed with traditional high fill primers so to prime & block a couple times it needed to be done with epoxy primer.

Sanding the different materials can take some trial and error testing for those who aren't used to plastics like urethanes and rubber like the Endura. Where you'd likely use 180 grit to knock down bondo type fillers on metal you'd find 120 on the EZ sand 3M flex filler works better. You'd be frustrated for hours using 180. Blocking epoxy primer takes patience and a finer grit than regular high build primers. Usually end up using 320 to block it flat then gray scuff pad.

This is the bumper that became blue.

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Civic cover in primer, one of the pics for the CL ad.

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