CHRISP

i've been debating for a while on how to tidy up my interior trim in my series one before it goes back into my car, i've been looking into it for a while due to the fact that all the different parts seemed to be different shades of grey and not quite matching colour wise, i didn't really want to just paint them all to match them up and quite fancied something a bit different from the norm (sorry to the series one purists )
so in the end i've decided to go with getting most of my interior plastics and dash flocked after searching through few different sites for info and pics of jobs done, raj and autoflock were a names that were coming up repeatedly and with lots of pics of work in progress and other info as well. nobody has had a bad word to say about the guy.
some of the series two stuff that i've seen raj do on here looks very very smart, especailly the two tone dashes, done in grey and black

i decided to email some pics over and request a quote for [deep breath]

knackered dash needing cracks from hell repaired, and also a 3 gauge pod fitting/blended in the centre vents c/w glovebox door etc

top and bottom cowls

speaker covers

sill trims

B and C pillar trims

door pockets c/w interior door handles and trims

front and rear door card top trims

and both bits of centre console

raj come back with a very reasonable quote and then discounted the whole job by 10% he then gave me a bit of advice on colours and stuff and talked me through the process involved, and then all the info on collection and delivery, (which he also sorted out)

we decided to go for grey in colour, not too far from the original, so it should all look very smart when back in the car,

thanks again raj

i think raj is due to start my stuff in the next few days so pics will follow of the process, before, during and after to show the finished items.

we'll keep you updated as some people may well be tempted when its done...
__________________

fordrallycar

iTrader: (4)

Had my parts back from Raj & they are A1
You will be happy with your parts

1223456

Well hello there Chris, we have made a start preparing all the plastics for this, so far all polyprop and abs panels have been heat treated and are awaiting the pre-adhesive soloution. I shall upload some pics a bit later after a brew. The plan is to get all the straight forward items such as the plastics preped, flocked, cured and sent back to you asap, then we can start on the custom work and the repairing of the dash.
Will keep you all posted

CHRISP

nice one raj thanks mate,

i guess everyone loves pics

1223456

Time and effort? you bet there is, along with some colourful language and a few tantrums when things do go exactly to plan.lol But im sure they will.
Anyway, here are some pics for you. The next few pics may not be of interest to anyone other than Chris but they will give some people an idea of what goes into this process. As a large majority of interior plastics are made from ab, abs and polyproperlene they have very high self releasing properties meaning no adhesive/epoxy will generate a chemical bond with it. I sure you have all heard or seen dashbaords or trim panels with flock peeling off.
We use a special soloution which encourages the chemical bond, its still not as strong as if it was on vynl for instance but it is a hell of a lot stronger than not using it at all. We also pre-heat the plastics first to help aggitate the surface. Lecture over, enjoy:
The job in hand

Preheat - notice how the plastic surface discolours as it is nearly at the point of melting





One heat treated part against one which has not been treated

Now the pre adhesive soloution













One of the speaker pods was damaged

Introduced a little bit of heat which allowed me to manipulate it back into place

GRP to keep it in place

1223456

Flocked parts

















Now under radiant heating for final cure

Well thats it for now, I have repaired the gauge pod and will be making a start on the dash once all the trim parts have been flocked and despatched.
Many thanks for looking

CHRISP

it looks lush raj colour is spot on as well... there looks to have been quite a pile of parts in that first pic for you to work through and thats wasn't everything lol

outstanding job mate, both prep and finish, i really can't wait till they're in the car mate... but don't rush it

scotty86d

Awesome stuff there!

1223456

Morning Chris,

sorry I didnt get these uploaded yesterday but ended up staying at work a little later than anticipated resuting in my excellent zombie impresion once I got home, only just managed to work the old knife and fork to eat my dinner!

Anyway, I have made a start on the poorly dashboard.

Here it is before any work





Well thats how it came to us so it was now to start on the repairs. First of all the cracks have to be opened up, with these vinyl/foam dashboards which are also found in siera cosworths nd other models are prone to warping once cracked meaning the sirface profile raises up either side of the crack. The surface break must be opened up until the profile is back to the correct level





After repairing the cracks in the triple gauge mount it was apparant the the phisical size of it was larger than the vent slot it was designed for, so the vent slots had to be opened up, we started by enlarging the bottom of the slot as the top was too near to the speaker meaning the gauges would fowl when installed


Mount in place

With the mount in place we needed to get the front face as flush with the profile of the dashboard as possible, nce we were happy with the position we clamped it in plae


Using a semi rigid grp compoun we tacked the back of the mount in place

With the tacks allcured and reinforced we were now able to flip the dashboard over and inspect the front, looks in perfect position already

Used some more grp compound to fill in the gaps and finish off the bonding. Doesnt look pretty but its there to do a job, properly


Now that has cured we got the 2"DA out to begin smoothing it in, here are the results and please note that has bee no filler applied what so ever so this mount is both light and extremely strong

A small amount of liquid resin ios now applied to fill any remaining voids/imperfections


Well that was it so far for the mount, you must remember that it takes a goopd 18hrs between cured for each application of resin/grp which makes this process very time consuming but thwe results are well worth it, you could do all this with just filler but it would crack straight away and also weigh a hell of a lot more.

While this was left I cracked on with some more flocking. Here you go






RAdiant Cure


Well this project is now moving along nicely and will all be in the post Monday as long as there is no complications. I hope you are happy with the progress Chris and hope thi thread is giving some people useful information as to how to go about repairing cracked dashboards.

StephenC

Nice work, that grey flock looks quite subtle, like it

CHRISP

yep i think the grey will look subtle, most people might not notice on the first look and maybe the second, but both the colour and finish are just what i wanted, sometimes when getting some work done you hope for what you want and don't always quite get it but i'm well happy and glad raj mentioned the colour


mate the last pics look pretty darn impressive, proof of the pudding is in the prep i guess mate, as for those first pics where the dash has been dremmel'd when you said on the phone it would look a bit scary you weren't kidding were you

i've read a few articles in magazines about DIY flocking but its certainly no DIY job looking at the pics, there quite a few man hours in that, with the chemicals to clean and prep before flocking and then the liquid resin instead of whacking a load of filler in, so i'm over the moon i didn't even consider the diy route and come to the right man for the job, otherwise it would just have been a complete waste of time and money...

i'm glad i've decided on the flock and thanks for the advice on the colour as well, its spot on mate :thumb: i like a few others i guess, didn't realise you could do just about any colour we wanted :approve:

its also good of you to show people whats involved and how you've gone about it, and also how you've shown everything from the very first stage to the last to show that theres nothing hidden and no short cuts taken along the way... very impressed mate :approve:

looks like i'm going to have to get myself prepared for a rather large delivery through the week sometime :woohoo:
thanks again mate, i'm sure more orders will follow

1223456

cheers for the kind comments, glad you are happy with the progress. More to come pal

Icurus

Nice work

Tarren

Raj is a topman with top work end of!!!

Luca

iTrader: (2)

Captain FuzzyFelt to the rescue!!!

TOP JOB!

1223456

Hello Chris,

sorry about the poor updates but had a really ban run of luck due to non paying clients and the company laptop deciding to obtain a virus and go ape on me. Anyway, all is fixed now so here are some pics for you.

Here is the cracks all sealed with grp



I have sprayed the centre speaker cover gloss black to see how it contrasts against the rixgrey flock

Any now for the dash all smoothed with the gauges blended and flocked
















All that is left to do now is the door card tops which will be done tomorrow. Hope these are ok Chris.

Many thanks

Raj

CHRISP

absolutely love it raj... i can't wait to have it all in the car mate, the prep, the colour, the finish is just like what we talked about and is exactly what i was after, its subtle in both colour and style, the gauge holes look factory and the colour is close, people have got a chance to look and say "that isn't a series one dash... or is it ? "


love it all mate and i'm really sorry that you've had the late late finishes mate, i appreciate you sqeezing me in before your well earned holidays

thanks again mate,

EssexMikeSi

iTrader: (3)

Other companies take note of how this man works. The fact he takes aloads of pics then whilst others would be having a fag or coffee break, hes uploaded them all then posted them on here. Huge respect to you.

Raj, do you have a pic of plastics done in different shades? Im possibly going to want all my plastics done in a very dark charcoal as i feel black may be too overpowering if i end up one day with all my interior plastics done.

How do we go about getting parts sent to you? I removed all my interior the other day to get the wiring loom out to strip down to remove the standard escort turbo wiring thast i wont need now since going cosie management.

Cheers, Mike

1223456

Glad your happy Chris, All will be ready for the post this weekend, The courier will be booked for collection Mon though to ensure they are not sotred in a depot over night.

Mike - Dont have any other pics but if you send me a swatch of the shade you would like then I can get it colour matched.

You can either arrange getting the parts to and from us or you can let us do all the donkey work for you. All you need to do is pack them up safely into parcels. The cost is £15.00 per parcel each way with an additional £7.50 per parcel for packaging on their return.

If you have any more potential work related quiries please give us a call or use the company email as its pretty hard to keep stock of business comms on threads/pm's etc. Glad you like the work and our operating ethos

(Chris sorry about the sales hyjack)

Luca

iTrader: (2)

Dash looks ace!

robbie1988

iTrader: (1)

Gonna have to get round to getting all my trim done - already spoke to Raj so just need to pull finger out lol

Cracking work there

Rob

1223456

Hey up chris,just a quick pic to see what you think of the black speaker contrast against the dash I think it looks stunning but its each to their own. Let me know if you want me to leave it as is or flock it in grey



p.s. Many thanks Rob/Luke

J1mbo

iTrader: (1)

that looks mint raj good work as per usual

robbie1988

iTrader: (1)

How hard is it to keep stuff like this clean then?

Defo getting it just curious

Rob

Luca

iTrader: (2)

Raj i want mine flocked that colour now in the S1

CHRISP

leave it painted raj, it breaks the flock up a bit, it might be a bit too much all the same colour in that one area if that makes sense, the black is fine mate.

lol @ luke... tis nice mate. and i thought you'd gone standard

thanks for all the comments guys but its all down to raj, the prep and finish, loooovely. he also arranged collection and delivery as well, i may be needing a few other bits of stuff done and as i've said before will not consider going anywhere else these threads are the best form of advertising possible in my opinion as he hides nothing with all the pics and write up, its all there to be seen. both a proffesional and personal service in one...

1223456

I thought you would say that chris

luke get a shagged dash and get that done if you really want it done, that way it saves you spoiling your authentically aged mint dash

CHRISP

you know your customers mate

Luca

iTrader: (2)

I am Chris but that looks Mine is crack free but the colour is a little murky I guess something il have to live with... Yours looks super and the black vent works a treat.



True true... Your like a woman... always right

1223456

Hello Chris,

sorted the courier, got a few pics to show you but I am now in the departure lounge at manchester ready to fly to palma on a cruise, barry is gonna sort the rest out, the side sills will be sent a bit later this week as I wasnt too happy with one of the as there was a fault with about 2cm by 2mm which had not taken to the charge, all sorted now though.

Will speak soon, I have my laptop with me so I shall try and upload the pics when I get chance.

Thank you bvery much for your business Chris and look forward to meeting you at some shows and see'in the car in the flesh

Best regards

Raj

CHRISP

mate if its anything like the pics i'm going to be over the moon when it turns up

i've had no complaints, worries or concerns about the whole process from start to finish raj, looking back i was probably a bit less informed than i thought i was (i didn't realise i could have any colour i wanted) and had an idea what i wanted but with some companies its difficult to get quite what you want, but mate you've sorted me right out, on time, on budget and with a cracking end result...

i'm hoping i'm taking that the right way lol, not many blokes say those words to me raj, but we can meet if you want and see how it goes over the fist few dates...
i'll meet you at stanford hall, rsoc national day at the entrance of the hall, i'll wear a cravat, and have a flower in my top pocket and will be carrying a publication made by a 'certain type of man' for 'certain types of men' or to give it its proper name.. fast ford...

reply by pm though mate

1223456

Dear oh dear!!!!

hope the stuff has arrived safely, just on way back to work now to get the sills sorted and wrapped up ready for despatch, still feel a little giddy from thge holiday as we had a serious storm on the voyage back to palma, still feel like im on the ship.