DIY Trimming?

Door cards look to be easy, although I haven't actually done a set yet myself. All you need to do is get a piece of masonite, cut to shape and with holes drilled using the old one as a template. Then cover it completely with thin foam, a couple of millimetres thick, glued to the board with spray glue and then cover again in vinyl or fabric. You can also get foam-backed upholstery vinyl.

As far as carpets go, if it's a common car I would just recommend buying proper ones, as they're really not expensive and the improvement in the car's appearance is worth it. I'm not sure what the price of aftermarket moulded carpets is like in the UK, but here in Australia you can get decent moulded carpets to fit most cars for between $200-$300 (about 150GBP), which I think is a bargain. Then just line it up, carefully cut all the holes for bolts/shifters/seat-belts, and you're off.

I've done door cards before, just cut think fibreboard to shape, then used spray fabric adhesive from Dunelm about £5 a tin and looks a little like fine silly string going on but dries rock solid so will allow some stretching etc around shapes and keep in place. On very open weave fabrics it may show through but presume you'll be using leatherette or similar rather than lace!

Carpets may be tricky, having overdosed on American Hotrod repeats I know they use steam tools to shape. It may be worth checking if someone like Moss does ready made carpet sets for your car as can be a pain I imagine. Or failing that a similar car one may be easier to mod.

The MGB carpets is very much in section, one over the tunnel, down the sills, and then a main piece in the middle which seems an easier way of doing complex shapes. With a decent pile on the carpets the joins tend to dissappear.

Door cards are easy if they're flat.
Just strip off the old material, if the backing board is in good shape re-use it, if not get some 3mm hardboard.
Glue on some thin foam, stretch the vinyl round and staple/glue it on the back with thin staples (so they don't go through)
Here's one I did on my manta.....

Hi mate, I've done a few at work now,

Did this little Frogface;



Started by stripping all the old knackered stuff out and scraping away any old glue and matting and giving it a good old hoover so theres no curse word under the carpets and sound deadening/underlay. Then start shaping the sound deadening/underlay and glueing it into position. Made sure that any bits that need to be accessible weren't covered.







For this one we actually bought a carpet kit that was already made for the Sprite so it was a case of making the fit nice and making it nice and soft underneath.





The original door pockets had been butchered for some speakers so I made some new ones out of plywood and covered them with thin foam. Also underneath the foam before I glued it down I used bolts with tapered heads and countersunk and Araldited them in so that I could bolt them from behind so it looked neater;



Made sure that it wasn't pulled too hard over the top because it pinches and you can see it under the covering. Got some matching red vinyl and covered them, used strong contact adhesive to wrap it over;





Also did a Damiler Dart recently;



Haven't got many pictures of the interior on this unfortunately but I actually made the carpets for this one, just got a big roll of flat black carpet, made some templates with the same foam I used for the frogeye door pockets (pliable and easy to cut for templates) used the templates to make the underlay and I use spray adhesive for putting the underlay down as it stays in place well but can be lifted out in the future without too much bother if need be. Cut the carpets and took them to a local carpet shop to trim the edges so it didn't fray. Did door cards same method as the pockets on the Forgeye Oh and also made this kickplate for the drivers side out of some rubber





And Ive done my Capri too, I always wanted super thick mega comfy carpets in my Capri. I actually got a roll of house carpet, the thickest I could find in CarpetRight!

Shaped and lay the underlay down the same method as the others;







Then it was really tricky but did it in a couple of sections and used lots of blades for shaping, making sure that I chose sensible places to 'join' the pieces, and got brought cold beers by my girlfriend Ah Summer....





I'm afraid I don't have any pictures really of the Capri interior as not long after I got it together I took a lot of it out to modify the gearbox tunnel and dash to fit the 200sx box and electrics. Hopefully soon as its sorted again Ill take photos of the interior