project 1980 Austin Princess

[GingerNuttz]

How do you think the dye will hold up? Does it seem durable enough to withstand kids ? I'm interested in their black for my door cards and rear seat 

[danthecapriman]

That looks fab!?

Itll be interesting to see how it wears and holds up once in use, but I suppose the original material was coloured in a similar way when new?

I can assure you that a retrim would come in significantly above what you’ve spent so far so to get a result like that you’ve done incredibly well with this.

[vulgalour]

@GingerNuttz Hopefully it will hold up pretty well, I've not encountered any complaints about it on the various fora I use, apart from a couple of comments from people who applied it wrong by doing no cleaning and spraying it on in a single coat.  No idea how it would hold up to kids, I'm always amazed at how destructive kids can be.  That said, it is really easy to touch up should you need to so the the higher wear areas can always be re-prepped and resprayed to top up the finish.  Vinyldye offer top coats as well which would offer a bit more protection.  It is the first time I'm using this stuff, so we'll have to see how it goes.  I used a different product  (Simply Spray) on my old Rover 414's carpets, it was fine for me, but my brother said the kids scuffed through it on the raised tunnel bit so I suppose it depends on the product and the way you use the area that's been done.  I'll be sure to report back if I experience problems, or if I don't.

[Isaac Hunt]

You make a good job of painting your vinyl.   I’ve only ever painted vinyl once, some headrests that I needed to change from brown to black.   I remember being impressed with how well it worked.  But ‘black over colour’ one might expect to be easy.  You are putting colour over black which ‘pushes mental boundaries’ a bit, but you make it work.

Your re-veneered dash looks good, did you do that yourself ?

[vulgalour]

Ta :)  Yep, dash I did myself which was actually a fairly easy job which surprised me.  It's documented somewhere in this behemoth of a thread.

[Keymaster]

Vulg, once again your attention to detail has paid back 10x over. The refreshed interior looks brilliant.

 

It was bugging me what the pic of the back your front seat reminded me of. Then I realised....

 

 

 

Engage!

 

 

 

 

[Angrydicky]

Can’t help feeling those seats would look better if you dyed the whole lot! Looking good though, big improvement on the nasty black.

[vulgalour]

Main reason for not dying the seat facings is I don't know how hard wearing the dye actually is, or if it works on the velour.  So rather than risk having red dye come off on my clothes, I thought it best to leave them as they are.  Vauxhall spec crushed velour in maroon would, naturally, be the preferred option and maybe that'll happen further down the line if I do a retrim proper.

[Noel Tidybeard]

i think the headrests need doing in your merlot colour

what about beige for the piping?

[vulgalour]

They flow better in the black, matches the middle of the seats.  Beige piping might be a bit much, it'd also be a lot of hand-dying or masking.

[MorrisItalSLX]

That interior really is looking rather excellent, the balance between the maroon and the black really works and it ties in nicely with the black C pillars.

I’m interested to see how the dye on the seats holds up with the flexing and movement, but it certainly looks great. I wonder if the headrests would look good with just the side panels dyed, leaving the rest black.

[vulgalour]

Not thought of doing that, could well tie them in a bit better.  I'll see if I've got enough dye leftover from the new order (6 cans should be enough I hope!) and give it a go if I have.  Worst case, I can always redye back to black if I don't like it.

[vulgalour]

Had some time and perfect weather to do more dye work.  Thought I needed four cans, ended up needing five and a half, so I was right to order six.  Top tip:  However much dye you think you need, it's more than that.  I'm seriously impressed at how well this dye has gone over black, even if it did take up to seven coats in places.  First thing I sorted out were the front seats, topping up the dye on the driver's seat and doing the passenger one from scratch.  Also made use of @MorrisItalSLX's suggestion of doing the sides of the head restraints in marooon and it really has tied the seats together nicely and made them look more finished than they did.  Excuse all the crap in the background, we're still doing decorating and DIY on this house so keep having to shift stuff into the wrong rooms.

The rear seat got the same vinyl-not-velour dye treatment, even the upright part of the back seat which you barely see.  I wasn't entirely sure if I had enough dye for that bit so I saved it until last.

I am delighted at how well that seat looks with the sole exception of the mounting bracket which I think I'm going to repaint using the maroon on the outside of the car, just because it jumps out so much now.  The last little detail is one I've wanted to do for ages which is the recess in the top of the lock buttons.  Normally, the lock buttons are plain black, I've add just a bit of chrome into the recess in the top of them, it's a subtle little detail that ties them in nicely to the other door furniture.

I haven't installed the front seats yet as they need handling a lot more than the rear seat to get them in place and I'd rather give the dye a few more hours to cure before I risk handling them.  The only problem so far is that the rear driver's side door card, one of the first items I dyed, feels a bit tacky in places.  The dye isn't lifting or transferring and doesn't seem to want to scrape off so I'm just leaving it alone.  I suspect because it was one of the first panels I did on a hot day I may have been too heavy with the dye and it may have been too hot a day to do it and it's just taking a bit longer to cure, especially since the other items I did on the same day don't have this issue.  The newer parts don't have this issue at all and I used incredibly light coats on much cooler days for those.  I also used the vinyldye cleaner on the other panels and a generic one on the rear card that's giving problems so that's worth considering too.

All in all, I'm very happy with how this is looking.

[dozeydustman]

Princess is looking absolutely the dog’s danglies.

[Skizzer]

That dye job does look fantastic.

Notes being taken here. I take it you got the stuff from https://www.vinyldye.co.uk/?

[phil_lihp]

Looks great, excellent work!

[vulgalour]

@Skizzer that's the place.  Very happy with the service thus far, the website has really good instructions on how to use the product and it seems reasonably priced considering the results.  I'm hoping I can say the same in a few months when I've had chance to wear things in a bit.

[timolloyd]

Maybe just avoid driving in white jeans for the first few trips out. 
 

Looks like an amazing job though.

[MikeKnight]

Very swish! Turned out much better than I thought it would. That's some good dye.

[vulgalour]

It is done!  The front seats went in really easily which was very unusual, normally at least one bolt refuses to line up.  I'm very pleased with the end result.  Worth noting, I did actually do the piping on the seats where it wasn't dyed as well as I'd've liked by simple standing the seat up and spraying from the top with the fabric masked, which gave a really crisp finish.  If you get your face right up to it you can see its been dyed in places, if you know what to look for.  Overall, the casual observer won't notice and indeed there's nothing that bothers me about the interior redo.  I'm so much happier with it now than any other interior colour this car has had. I'm seriously considering using this dye to cover up the glue staining on the headlining too, a common Princess problem, something about the glue means it stains the vinyl this horrible yellowy colour and you can't clean it off.  That's something for another day.  For now, enjoy the maroon-and-black, Captain Picard's uniform, interior splendour.

Oh wait, one last thing...

Perfect.

[MorrisItalSLX]

Tremendous.

The maroon/black/cream combo compliment the exterior perfectly.

Bravo.

[GingerNuttz]

Turned out bloody fantastic ! I'm definitely going to give their black a try 

[Parky]

Love that.  It actually looks as if it could have been a genuine BL interior colour option, albeit one reserved for one of the Club 100 models which I recall had a red interior.  Really well done that.

[vulgalour]

@Parky Spanish Rose.  http://www.leylandprincess.co.uk/Princess%20Club%20100.htm

Club 100 was one of my inspirations for this, that and the ruby interior in Mk3 Ford Cortinas.  That it looks genuine to someone else makes me smile too, that was very much my aim, that it should look like a rare factory option rather than a custom interior.

[Parky]

Allegros had a very red interior option so the colour could very easily have been offered on the Princess.  It absolutely looks like a rare option rather than customised

 

[captain_70s]

Looks good, you'd never be able to tell it was a DIY affair!

[ETCHY]

Great job, very well done.

Yeah glue stains on the headlining seemed to be a big BL thing back in the day, it's often mentioned in contemporary road tests, Dolomite's often seem similarly afflicted too !

[320touring]

Fucking hell vulg, that looks absolutely tremendous:)

 

Excellent work!

[Keymaster]

Tremendous scenes! Looks ace and the maroon headrest panels work so well. I'd feel like king of the world if I were you today

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Fair play to ya Vulg, even I have to admit that looks great!!!! 10/10