Door trims are just about done. Five coats of black lacquer so far, and I decided to test-fit the door trim just to see if the look is right. So far I love it. I just pushed it onto the door to see how it looks. It's now down in my basement with the first of five coats of clearcoat drying on it. Sorry about crappy phone cam pics - when the whole thing is done, I'll take good pics with a real camera.

This weekend the door trims will go back on and the dash trim will come out for the same treatment. Many more changes occurring in my car's interior right now, so I am looking forward to posting pics of the full range of changes. Should be nice when it's finished Changing the wood trim to the metallic silver made a nice difference and looked quite a bit better - IMO this looks better yet.

The driver's door panel trim:





The center panel I did two weeks ago:



I haven't taken out the center tunnel to pull the dash trim pieces yet, but those will be done this weekend and everything reinstalled. Completed pics to follow. Gotta love inexpensive mods that make a difference to the look of the car (I have about $35 in this so far for sanding and painting supplies).

 

That looks awesome man i dig it. What grit are you sanding with in between coats of clear?

 

Thanks bro. I don't sand between each coat, but what I have done is two coats of filler primer, followed by a light-pressure wetsand with 2000 grit. Then five coats of black, same wetsand, then the clearcoat, with a 3000-grit wetsand (again, very light pressure). Seems to work nicely

 

Yeah that looks awesome, they look like puddles of water lol. I'm still tryin to work up the minerals to try this on mine :/

 

well since his exterior looks like ****, so he's murdering his interior for revenge. next thing you know he's gonna have black windows, black rear view mirror, black side view mirrors, black guages and the whole shebang. o he's gonna have black letters on his buttons too hehehe

 

LOL, someone **** in your cheerios bro? When you get wheels that fit inside your fenders, come talk to me. And get my sister out of your sig!!!

 

my wheels do fit in my fenders, just my tires won't lol. if only you had an asian sister bro. you'd probably not be on AF and would probably be hunting me down, of course you could never find me cuz I'M ASIAN. muahahahahaha. you can actually put your stuff back together if your shift boot hasn't came yet. you can pull the big flat piece around shift boot by the ebrake side and it comes right out.

 

looking good! i may have to do that yet.. how about a DIY guide?

 

I wish I could - your car's shifter platform is different than mine - I have to remove the center tunnel from the armrest forward to get to the shift boot. But that's OK because I have to pull all of that and more to take off the dash trim panels for the blackout.

As for a DIY, there's a procedure on www.audiworld.com that shows you how to remove everything (it's called "brushed aluminum trim" or along those lines). From there, sand everything until it's very, very smooth (you don't want roughness or it'll show when the gloss is applied). Prime it with a couple coats of filler primer, wetsand with the finest paper you can get (I used 2000 grit and sanded VERY lightly). Then I did the multiple coats of gloss black, with a light 2000 grit wetsand afterward. Then I found it was too humid and frigged up the finish so I had to start over lol. Did all that stuff again (including taking it down to the wood again), then did multiple coats of gloss and found that it was too humid doing the gloss, so I'm going to redo the door trims. I'll do the dash trims at the same time and then reinstall all of it for pics with a real camera.

The main thing is to take your time, wear latex gloves (so finger oils don't get on the wood and screw up the paint adhesion - I also wiped it down with alcohol first), and make sure you're in a moderate temperature, low humidity environment. Humidity will screw you up instantly and you'll have to start over. It's turning into a pain in the *** but I love the gloss black finish on the black door panels - it's subtle but it stands out all the same. Once I'm done with all my suede work it'll really pop.