Finally, looks like Viper Race Yellow is my son's color of choice for his '74 Sport. Problem now is that his interior is "parchment", a very light beige. Not very sporty looking with bright yellow. We are now considering the possibility of changing the color of the entire interior. He is thinking maybe black, graphite, or charcoal combinations, with some splashes of yellow thrown in for accent.

Question: Is the SEM system of vinyl dying the best around? Is it as good as the retailers say it is for colorfastness and resistance to cracking, fading, or peeling?
We are replacing plastic and vinyl trim as we find them, different colors from various sources. Most will need to be refinished anyway. We want to do it right only one time.

I appreciate any input from first-hand users on process, difficulty, and pit-falls.

Thanks,
Jerry

_________________
There's a difference between ignorance and stupidity.
Ignorance is not knowing any better.
Stupidity is knowing, yet doing it anyway.

We're having a hard time finding a black/gray tweed cloth with
yellow specs, to use for his seat inserts. If none is to be found,
plan B is to maybe use yellow vinyl welt cord (sometimes called
piping) at all the stitched areas. Anyone ever use this method
on your upholstery for some accent color?

Still need some input on the vinyl dye question.

_________________
There's a difference between ignorance and stupidity.
Ignorance is not knowing any better.
Stupidity is knowing, yet doing it anyway.

I changed the interior on my 68 Barracuda from medium blue to black with SEM vinyl dye. I dyed everything but the carpet and headliner (both new and balck).

On the vinyl door panels, visors, dash pad and arm rests it's on there for good. You would have to scratch below the surface to reveal the blue.

The seats had been redone with velour inserts on the seating surfaces. Here the dye slowly wears away and a fant blue hue starts to show but it only takes 5 minutes to touch up and I have only had to do it a couple of times per year. On the vinyl parts of the seats it's the same as the other parts, it's there to stay. I also used it to paint the plastic and metal trim parts as well as the dash frame. It sticks on these surfaces as well as any other paint.

I have almost 27,000 miles on the car (over three summers of driving) since doing it and I am completely satisfied with the SEM product.

_________________

Dave Clement
68 Barracuda (Hot-Rod \6)
http://mysite.verizon.net/vze4pgxf/

I've used SEM dyes several times and they are very high quality. The secret is to follow the instructions closely; don't cut corners or get in a hurry.

I wished I would have used SEM first time around, don't remember what I used. I tried to dye my interior black and kept find beige popping up all the time. I guess it's all good though, it lead me to designing my Dart as a modern brothel sort of look. It's a mix of burgundy pieces from a four door Dart and black pieces from a two door dart. I'm learning reupholstery through my method too, though I am redoing a lot of stuff. Every time I do the quality goes up and my interior looks better. My current pride and joy is my sunvisors which I redid in black with burgundy trim around the side and a mirror inserted in the middle with red lights, it may not be 100% professional yet but I like the way it looks, plus the new velvet material feels very nice. I have to also cover a lot of my plastic, I don't want paint fading on me so I'm just covering what's beige an plastic with vinyl. It looks neat. I hope that someday it will be worth posting pictures of, but first I have to paint the metal pieces, get burgundy bucket seats, build a center console, redo a dashpad in burgundy, build a custom gauge/ dash instert type stuff, and other such happy things before my interior really shines. If you have a two door Dart it should be fairly easy to find good quality black parts that don't need paint. I, happily, have a four door that's hard to find black parts for, so instead I fabricate them.