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.