Interior Update
BLUF: I made my own Type-S Style Blue Door Cards for less than $100.
With the weather making for a rather chilly garage lately I decided to work on a DIY project indoors for the car. I had been trying to source OEM Type-S blue door cards for probably 9 months but was having no luck. I was told they were NLA new from Honda so I didn't even try. So the only option left...I will have Type-S style cards made!
I sourced a used set of door cards (I really want to keep my originals):
I got several blue swatches from Toray of their UltraSuede product and asked @
MexiRicer for a favor. I sent him the swatches and he compared them to his OEM Blue Door Cards. He has a few swatches of Alcantara so he compared those as well. We came up with an Alcantara option and an Ultrasuede option that were pretty damn close under most lighting conditions. I started watching a site that @
Honcho alerted me to for Ultrasuede remnants but was having no luck finding the right color there or eBay. I knew at this time I only needed about a yard but I was hoping to find close to 3 so I wouldn't have to source the material again for the Recaros later on.
I went to a well known local auto upholstery shop, took in the door cards, told them they were for a 1991 Honda :smile: and that I wanted blue ultrasuede. I was only going to be able to order whatever blue his suppliers would supply...strike 1. Then he told me that I would have to order at least 2 yards at $120/yd. Thanks to @
Teej I knew I only needed about 1/2 yd...strike 2 against the shop. The icing on the cake, he wanted $50/card to do the job!!!! $240 for fabric + $500 for material/labor = $740 BEFORE TAX! Plus what I paid for the extra set of door cards this would make my replicas more than the cost of the real ones. STRIKE 3. New plan...I will find material and make them myself!
Then MexiRicer delivered an early Xmas gift, he found a product on eBay that was already perforated and the sample he was sent was a DEAD ON match for the OEM color in every light. I immediately ordered 3 yards ($69/yd) and a few weeks later this beautiful blue ultrasuede showed up from Korea:
I used Johan's old DIY thread for some tips and research but I discovered a few things. He used 2mm foam for under vinyl flooring, the issue here is it's only sold in rolls of 100sq ft and I didn't need anywhere near that much. I also noticed that he wrapped the foam and fabric around the edges of the cards. Anyways I asked Teej for a few tips and he mentioned he got his foam at the fabric store and to use at least 3M Super 77 or better spray adhesive and he only took the foam to the edge of the cards and didn't wrap the foam around the edges. I couldn't find any decent foam at the fabric store except for craft foam and it was 2mm thick but it looked way too thin to me. An employee told me that they sold headliner foam, would that work? Brilliant idea actually, so I bought a yard of headliner from JoAnn's ($9) and went home to start tackling this project. The fabric headliner actually came off the foam with extreme ease:
Next step was to remove the old leathers from the door cards. I knew that Johan had said they were glued on with some out of this world glue...ya he was right. My fingers were KILLING me after just the first door handle insert piece was done:
New wrinkle discovered...The foam for the door handle insert pieces is EXTREMELY thin, like 2mm. So back to JoAnn's I went to get some craft foam ($1). Not only that but the foam used on the Door Handle Insert pieces was not easy to remove, I had to scrape it off with a trim removal tool. Which is also what I used to remove the rest of the leathers since my fingers would not have survived. But as you can see 2 photos down, the other 4 pieces for each side have what appears to be 4mm headliner foam on the original pieces, and this foam was barely tacked onto the cards so I was able to preserve most of them to draw patterns for the new foam (later found out this wasn't necessary), and it was only on the front side of the cards not wrapped around.
Here is all of the cards with old leathers and foam removed:
I used the old foam to draw patterns for the new foam and then added a little buffer just in case:
Next Step was to glue the foam to the cards so I spread everything out and sprayed it all (the foam pieces and the door cards) with 3M Super 77 spray adhesive ($8), waited about a minute and then carefully placed the foam on each card. Because the glue stays tacky for a while I waited 48 hours before i trimmed the excess foam off of the cards. You don't need patterns, just cut big enough squares of foam and glue them on then trim.
I only used about 1/2 of the yard of foam (like Teej said) so I didn't want to cut a whole yard of the ultrasuede off. I know supposedly I need right around 2 yards to recover the cushions of the Recaros but I figured if I could save more for "whoops" moments on that project I should try. So I measured off and cut 25" of fabric because I wanted to make sure I had room for error on the door card patterns. Well stupid me didn't look first and there was a giant crease in the fabric right down the center. I found conflicting recommendations on the safe way to remove creases from ultrasuede online so I asked the manufacturer. That was no help, it actually was a rather comical exchange of messages because of the language barrier. So I tried the old shower steam trick, threw it over the shower curtain rod, turned the water on full heat, closed the door and waited 20 minutes. Worked like a champ! Waited another 24 hours for the fabric to dry because it was a bit damp and then used the old leathers to make patterns on the fabric. REMINDER: put the fabric and the old leathers FACE DOWN when you do this!
Next step, cut out the patterns but give yourself a buffer. Then spray the backside of the fabric and the front side of the door cards again with 3M Super 77 spray adhesive and attach the fabric to the door cards. I didn't really line a few of them up so that bit me in the ass later.
Finally I decided I wanted something strong to hold the fabric after I wrapped it and not just Super 77 so I ran to Lowe's and picked up DAP Weldwood contact cement. It worked really well and it comes with a little brush so I could get the glue exactly where I wanted it. I had never done any kind of upholstery before so it took some time to figure out how to wrap these and how/where to make the proper cuts.
They aren't perfect but my few imperfections I think will be hidden. But anyways after several hours of cutting and trimming and pulling my Type-S Style Blue Door Card Inserts are complete!
Now when the garage warms up I'll take the door panels off and install these.
So to recap: 1yd of material + 1 yd of headliner + craft foam + 3M Super 77 + DAP Weldwood = $69+$9+$1+$9+$6 = $94
Just for reference here are the 2 glues I used:
