DIY: Interior upgrade - alcantara + black paint!!!

Spent some quality time with my 07 spec.B last week, and did some self made changes to the interior colors. IMO, it turned out extra cool, and exactly how I wanted it.

The plastic radio panel, side strips and the piece around shifter bothered me almost since I got my brand new car. The metal paint looked very cheap and chease, something out of 13 grand cobalt or whatever, and side strips around radio squiked like hell. So finally I decided to be a man and do something about it. I painted the central part in flat black, and I wrapped the side strips in spec.b blue alcantara. It's perfect now!

1. I disassembled the whole thing, took out radio and disassembled radio panel. Unscrew 6 screws to get the radio out (you need to pull it forward just a little), unscrew 6 small screws on sides/top to get the front panel out. Unscrew umpteen little screws to take the plastic off the green plate. The volume know won't get out on itself and has to be popped out. Than, with some patience, you can get every little knob, button, shiny circles, and illumination plastic out, except the plastic windows for controls. Two little TEMP labels were removed by poking from the back side. The volume

2. Shifter piece is very easy to disassemble. The ashtray/plug can be unscrewed from the panel. I put 3m blue tape on windows of radio panel, and I put some aluminum backed tape on the back where Slow-Drive label was, than patched and sanded wholes. Lightly saned all surfaces with fine sandpaper. Just enough to sand the radio labels out and give some grip to the paint.

3. Painted both pieces with 3 layers of Duplicolor Bumper paint.First layer very thin, just little mist, than another thin layer in an hour - to give it black color, and another finishing layer the next day. This duplicolor paint is amazing. It feels fragile and easy to scratch the first day (and it is), but after it's cured - it's strong and solid and have good adhesion. I put some test patch on the back of the peice - and than tried to scratch it - it's stronger than factory paint, IMHO. But you have to give it a day to cure - DON't touch it before that. It also matches the other black pieces, like that around the NAV, and where the cupholder is - almoust perfectly. No difference to naked eye.

here you can see painted piece and disaasembled radio panel.

http://trusevich.com/album/other/Subaru%20Legacy%20GT%20type%20B/interior%20upgrade/suby_interior_03.jpg

http://trusevich.com/album/other/Subaru%20Legacy%20GT%20type%20B/interior%20upgrade/suby_interior_04.jpg

4. While the plastic cures, I get out my sewing machine and started on replacing fake leather with alcantara. I got alcantara from a guy on nasioc.com. He has some spec. B specific color, left from production of Spec.B, so he says. It's exact match to seats/side panels.

I took out shift boot and hand brake boot, teared the glue from plastic, than cut at seams to get an exact template. Than transfered templates (draw around with permanent marker) to the back of alcantara, added about 3/8 for side seams, and adeed more where parts need to be glued around plastic. It's difficult to explain, but real easy to do when you have pieces in hand. If you know what you are doing. If you don't, I guess, you can find an alterination shop that can do it for you.

I used a thick wite thread, says "for buttons", to match the one in factory seats stitching (on black leather side pieces). It wasn't easy to sew with my POS sewing machine, and I had to do some creative techniques to get nice and even stitches, but it wasn't that hard either.

Here you can see handbrake boot next to the real thing

http://trusevich.com/album/other/Subaru%20Legacy%20GT%20type%20B/interior%20upgrade/suby_interior_02.jpg

http://trusevich.com/album/other/Subaru%20Legacy%20GT%20type%20B/interior%20upgrade/suby_interior_01.jpg

For side strips I did templates from scratch, making it out of 3 pieces, to accomodate for 3D shape. It would be very difficult to wrap seat-grade Alcantara (not very stretchable) in one piece nicely. But probably possible. I wanted to add some stitching anyway, for looks. But I didn't want to do long stitching, as I couldn't get it perfect. So in this case form followed function, and the result happen to be good looking.

I glued everything (boots and side pieces) with 3M medium strength trim/fabric glue. Blue tape where you don't need it, spray glue on plastic in nice even coat, let dry for 90 seconds, take out blue tape, than press Alcantara to the glue. Don't worry, you have time, 3-5 minutes at least. Let it all dry for a day.

5. Trim the extra alcantara from the back of the strips, so clips are not obstructed.

6. Install everything.

http://trusevich.com/album/other/Subaru%20Legacy%20GT%20type%20B/interior%20upgrade/suby_interior_05.jpg

http://trusevich.com/album/other/Subaru%20Legacy%20GT%20type%20B/interior%20upgrade/suby_interior_06.jpg

http://trusevich.com/album/other/Subaru%20Legacy%20GT%20type%20B/interior%20upgrade/suby_interior_07.jpg

http://trusevich.com/album/other/Subaru%20Legacy%20GT%20type%20B/interior%20upgrade/suby_interior_08.jpg

http://trusevich.com/album/other/Subaru%20Legacy%20GT%20type%20B/interior%20upgrade/suby_interior_09.jpg

I really like the black stereo/HVAC look in your car! Nicely done.

+1! Nice job.

Nice!

^rtbrjason.. I just see you on the way to work on 590S by chance? lol

High quality craftsmanship, I'm impressed. Where did you get the leather?

It's not the leather, it's synthetic fabric, same as on seats. I found the guy on NAISOC forum who has it. DOn't remember his username, but you can do search if need.

hey if you have extra material can you make me a shifter and hand brake boots.

I do have extra material, but as I don't do it production way - it takes me a long time to make every piece. So the price I'll have to charge for my work will be quite high. And you'll have to send in the plastic pieces that boots glued to so I can test fit, and glue it in.

Impressive work. Not a huge fan of the blue on the radio surrounds, but as long as you like it, that's all that matters. Your work seems top notch.

Radio surrounds were producing a lot of high-pitched noice. By itself, and when I touch it with my knee. I first thought to just paint it, but that wouldn't help with noise. Now it's dead quiet!

I've been trying to find the OEM fabric for the shift/brake boots. One question; did you have a part number for the ebrake boot base? It's plastic and the fabric is glued on. I can make the boot easy but it's hard to distribute this since people would have to glue it on themselves and probably screw it up.

Also, can you send me the pattern for that MT boot, I don't have that yet. Scans would be awesome.

I've been working on a A/T shift boot project here:

http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php?t=119647

And the problems I'm hitting are the close proximity of the bezel ring of the A/T gate and the thickness of the material.

I'll be around tonight if you want to call me, PM me.

So I'm looking for the OEM black grain vinyl leather material used on the OEM shift boot / ebrake... and if you can pass me the contact for the guy with the OEM leather it would REALLY really make my project flow smoother.

I'm sitting on the edge of production for this, and I'll gladly spend the money for the industrial machine to stitch this if I can get the prototype to fit without breaking or stressing the chrome A/T bezel.

Thanks for any help man...

-Jeff

I've been trying to find the OEM fabric for the shift/brake boots. One question; did you have a part number for the ebrake boot base? It's plastic and the fabric is glued on. I can make the boot easy but it's hard to distribute this since people would have to glue it on themselves and probably screw it up.

 

Also, can you send me the pattern for that MT boot, I don't have that yet. Scans would be awesome.

 

I've been working on a A/T shift boot project here:

 

http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php?t=119647

 

And the problems I'm hitting are the close proximity of the bezel ring of the A/T gate and the thickness of the material.

 

I'll be around tonight if you want to call me, PM me.

 

So I'm looking for the OEM black grain vinyl leather material used on the OEM shift boot / ebrake... and if you can pass me the contact for the guy with the OEM leather it would REALLY really make my project flow smoother.

 

I'm sitting on the edge of production for this, and I'll gladly spend the money for the industrial machine to stitch this if I can get the prototype to fit without breaking or stressing the chrome A/T bezel.

 

 

Thanks for any help man...

 

-Jeff

The way to do it would be to ask them to send you their boots glued to plastic, than, you'll tear it off the plastic, cut the boot to pieces and have an instant template for new fabric.

I don't know any part numbers. I got the BLUE Alcantara from Pepe on NAISOC forum. You can do a search for Alcantara over there. For the perforated vinyl that non-spec.b cars have (I assume?) you'll have to look further

Now if I can find a small sports wheel, and wrap the roof in black alcantara - I'll be happy with interior !

The wheel seems to be a big problem though

The way to do it would be to ask them to send you their boots glued to plastic, than, you'll tear it off the plastic, cut the boot to pieces and have an instant template for new fabric.

 

I don't know any part numbers. I got the BLUE Alcantara from Pepe on NAISOC forum. You can do a search for Alcantara over there. For the perforated vinyl that non-spec.b cars have (I assume?) you'll have to look further

No, the original material that came with the brake boot and shift boot is a 1/2mm thick vinyl instead of the marine grade 1mm thick vinyl.

It's black, with white cloth on the back, and very thin. The thread used is black nylon upholstery that resists fading.

BTW: the Legacy GT uses real leather, not vinyl, for it's inserts. The i models use terrycloth or cotton blend or something.

Now if I can find a small sports wheel, and wrap the roof in black alcantara - I'll be happy with interior !

 

The wheel seems to be a big problem though

Not a big problem - just an expensive one!!!

Not a big problem - just an expensive one!!!

Well, yeah. I don't have couple grand to spend on a wheel

excellent! I dig it. I'm looking for some Alcantara to match my STI....I'd like to do the instrument hood and maybe the dash. Like the STI 'Carbon' model

http://cache-05.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/12/2009/09/500x_subaru_wrx_sti_carbon_3.jpg