Interior overhaul - murdered out (ongoing)

Whelp, with all of the major mechanical stuff where I want it for now, it's time to start fuckin up the interior.

Today's work was floors, seats, and center console.

It took a while to find a factory all-weather floor, but I did. I laid it out in the sun while I prepped for install and did the seats. Today wasn't exactly warm but it was above 60 finally, and it did make a difference in pliability after it sat for a few hours.


The interior wasn't bad to tear apart. I was already familiar with the door and kick panel trim, and the center console only required one or two quick scrolls through some YouTube videos, mostly to confirm I really could just pop stuff out that seemed like it just popped out:


Found a rodent nest inside the console. FFFFFFFFFFfffffffuuuuuuuuuu..... But it was obviously very old and not inhabited for long. Probably from the first spring I was in VT, before I taught the dog to pee on the tires and put a chunk of gutter guard on the A/C cowl vent:


After some general cleanup, including pennies wedged into places I could not believe, the floor went in like it was made to. (It... Was.) I massaged it as best I could, knowing that this summer I'll have the seats and console out again anyway and it will be much more cooperative:


While it was right there, I also adjusted the parking brake tensioner inside the center console.

I've wanted to murder out the interior for a long time and finally settled on SEM's vinyl and plastic dye:


I scrubbed with soap/water/stiff brush especially in crevices with almost 15 years of junk caked on, then degreased with alcohol and rags, then used SEM's Plastic Prep and the dye with religious attention to the instructions:


Wiring for the heated seats (Leather Clazzios, done off camera because there is ample documentation already - I however note that the console lid cover was the worst part of this entire project) was run neatly inside the console and under the flooring:


I will also note that the connectors on the Clazzio kit are mechanically decent but have relatively thin pins and are not sealed. I gave them a generous dab of dielectric grease to avoid any corrosion in the future. I track brine into the truck all winter and didn't want to have to worry about it.

Console reinstalled. Note the waves and ripples in the flooring. Again, it will be much more cooperative this summer, especially since it's going from a 90% fit to a perfect one instead of starting from folded up and frozen in a box:


Finished shots of today's work:


I'll update the thread when I wire the seats. I'll be murdering out the rest of the gray plastic (seat trim, door channels, kicks, pillars, door cards, lower dash, glovebox), re-doing my dog deck in rubber, replacing the cloth armrests with leather, and POSSIBLY a leather headliner, if I can find some nice thin pebble grain in black at a price I can stomach.

 

Reserved for Part 2

 

I want an all blacked out interior super bad. This looks great!

 

Looking great!!

 

Hmmmm subd! Looking good. Has me thinking about getting the black shifter trim…

 

Nice work!!!!!!

 

Awesome! Can you point me where you got the floor liner? I've also never heard of dying the plastic. I'd love to look into this and do some trim pieces myself. I'm really digging your build so far!

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...ing-part-numbers.443444/page-15#post-28516915

 

Yeah, I did a ton of reading before going with the SEM product. It's what a friend of a friend of a friend who does high end custom/resto work uses, and a lot of the classic car guys use it.

Something I'm gonna have to wait and see about is whether or not the specific Adhesion Promoter I used was correct for the various kinds of plastic. I'll keep the thread updated on durability. Can't find much info on full cure time for the dye, but it dries to the touch pretty dang quick. I'm betting that the full cure time really depends a lot on the specific formulation of plastic, how old/UV'd it is, temps, and so forth. I'm gonna be real careful with it for a week or so.

 

You'll love the floor. I've had one for a few years and it's been awesome. I did put in tons of sound deadening when I installed mine.

 

I've looked into that before but haven't seen anything on results. How does it sound after deadening?

 

Looks like you still have grey panels

if you want black, I've seen people fully black out using various types of paint specifically designed for that purpose
I don't know if they do it in-car and let it air dry, or have to remove the parts (such as lower dash) to clean/prep, paint, and let dry on it's own

 

I'm gonna tear all mine out (lower dash, glovebox, etc) when I do them like I did with the center console. I need to do a lot of wiring work and that will also be easier with it gutted. I used SEM Color Coat on the console and it went on great, and all the other panels are the same material. I will probably do the door floor trim and kick panels (and maybe the lower seat trim panels) with black bed liner for durability, I really stomp the hell out of them.

I didn't do the floors but I did the rear wall, inside the rear floor cubby, and the driver's side door with Noico, foam, and MLV, and it made an incredible difference. I'm going to do the rest of the doors this summer.

 

Huge improvement.

 

Love it. This is exactly what I plan on doing once, like you, I'm done fucking up the exterior.

 

Limited budget, limited time, I wanted to make sure it would go where I wanted before I worried about getting there in style. Plus it's way cooler when the working pig is luxury on the inside.

 

Looking really great! I just found this thread, I'd like to spruce some some of the visible details in my 2013's interior, like the door armrests, door pulls, and center console which is pretty chipped up/marked up. Did you refurbish and/or replace yours in any way? Looks so clean!

 

Thanks. I did a little light (LIGHT) sanding where there were some nicks. Sand too much on this textured plastic and it's super obvious. I had a buddy suggest using one of those vinyl/leather repair kits with the little graining patch, which I think would work, but I didn't bother.

 

Have you painted the door panels or lower dash yet? I want to do it to my Tacoma, made a post about it a couple of months ago but couldn't find very much info on it. If you have, how is it holding up? I want to do it hopefully at some point this summer and get a black shifter bezel, black radio/vent trim, black seatbelts, black headliner, and black seat upholstery. The one guy who replied to my post hasn't posted any updates on his interior paint, unfortunately.

 

Not yet, waiting for a break in my other projects this summer. I'll update this thread when I do. The console is holding up great to dog traffic and regular use, so I'll use the same stuff (the SEM Color Coat) on the lower dash and door panels, and I think I'm gonna bedliner the seat sides and kick panels, cause I beat the shit out of them.