T-Top Inner Liner Touch-Up
The faded felt on my t-tops was unbearable to look at. I have new
carpet and ceiling liner and the felt just proved my car was 15 yrs.
old. Well...those felt covers are pretty deteriorated. The have a thin
layer of foam underneath and are glue, stapled, and the felt gets tucked
under all the plastic parts on the sides. Since those are melted in, you
can't really consider putting new felt on (if someone has done it I
applaud you).
That papery stuff is a real pain in the butt. It cost too much to
replace them (since you have to buy new T-Tops), and the stuff is so
brittle I was scared that I would crack it all up if I tried to
reupholster it. The mould is also just some cardboard material that
could easily snap...and if that happened while trying to re-felt them
that would really suck. So this is what I did, and it matched the dark
brown color of my new visors perfectly!!! (By the way this is on a red
'84 with the grey seats and brown trim).
I first masked off all the plastic parts (with the cover
that has felt on it completely removed from the t-top) and then I just
painted it brown. This looked like crap. The brown paint was much redder
than I expected. But when I bought the paint I considered that the brown
might not look so good, so I also bought a can of flat black.
After the brown dried, I took the flat black and put on two generous
coats. The result??? A perfect color match!!!
This really makes a difference in the feel of the inside of the car if
you are sick of the faded very light brown felt of 15 years. I think it
also added 3 hp to the car. The only bad thing is that the paint does
dry solid, so thought it still looks like felt, it doesn't feel soft
like felt. So for those that like to pet your car, sorry, this isn't for
you.