What can be done to restore a nice black luster to my faded black interior vinyl? Aside from armor all or replacement.

I did a search (sort of...). I'm looking for the easy anaswer that there must be something

 

vinyl die or interior vinyl paint from your local auto parts store

 

Go back a couple of weeks and find my thread in this forum titled "restoration of sun-faded plastic parts" for the answer to your query. There is also a "before & after" pic. Good luck! -WG

 

Let's see if this works.

https://www.rx7club.com/forum/showth...hreadid=120817

 

I wound up comparing the leather dye with vinyl paint on different parts to test.

I was pretty disappointed with the leather dye. It
adds a purplish town compared to the paint.
Suprisingly the vinyl paint which was cheap at the local auto parts store looked great. My girlfriend and 2 co-workers both thought I had replaced the parts/vinyl.

I'm not done with the vinyl paint on some of the none removable pieces because i want to be careful to protect everything else but the vinyl paint is the best bang for the buck I have yet to get out my car...a $6 can and some armor all cleaning wipes and it looks new.

 

That purplish tinge is oxidation from the leather dye being old, or the plastic not being completely clean prior to application. This will also happen if you reuse the little applicators. -Mike

 

I just read about SEM vinyl paint. You lightly sand to give the paint something to stick to, then use a special cleaner that deep cleans and softens the surface before you apply the paint. eastwood sells it.

 

well, I ordered it from the internet and it was backordered so i doubt it was too old but maybe. It came in (4 bottles of it ) and I had a dozen applicators extra ordered with them never reusing one. I only did 2 tests and used 2 different applicators.

I cleaned it thoroughly and tested first on the
strut cover caps. One in vinyl paint, the other with the spray. After a day, next to each other the spray paint
was much blacker and natural looking, the dye looked
purplish next to it and was a bit shinier maybe but overall didn't look as good (but better then it had).

I then tested both on an unotcieable part of the door where the soft vinyl is to see how it worked on that vinyl. The leather dye is hard to apply uniformly and it showed after it dried as different shades of a black but with purplish tinit. The paint looked great and even, just harder to work with nonremovable pieces.

I just haven't finished the paint everywhere because it'll require me to prep a lot and protect for overspray. I set next Saturday...

Just my experience and wanted to let you all know how it turned out.

David

 

David,

Sorry it didn't work out for you, I just don't know what to tell you. The leather dye worked great on my plastic parts, and matched the original parts that were not affected by the sun, that is they were both the same shade of black, so I didn't have to dye the unaffected parts to match, resulting in a very stock appearance. I think the reality is that the vinyl paint is blacker than the original plastic color, and that may be why in your side-by-side comparison the dyed piece was not as dark. I make custom leather holsters as a sideline and am very experienced with dying leather, so perhaps this technique is a bit too demanding for some. I hope the method that you choose ends up pleasing you. -Mike

 

Yeah, I'm definitley not the best at this type of stuff but I thought I gave it a good effort. My parts were really faded too. Aside from prep work, for impatient people like me, I think just spraying it down works great. Thanks for the advice though, the end result is that I'm getting it settled.

Wanna buy my 3 left unopened bottles of dye

David

 

Me & my gf painted her FC interior from red to black.
We used that vinyl paint. Completely strip the whole interior and got all new matching carpeting. Paint everything piece by piece. Took about a weekend. It's been on for about 3-4 months now and it still looks great.
Just put in two black Recaro seats. Feels like a new car