Good source for upholstery renewal?

[Ivan_B]

Hello everyone!

Just got a 1940 Plymouth P10. The car is in very good condition; appears to be mostly original, except an older re-paint and some accessories. The interior looks OEM, and is in rather bad shape. I was planning to do some careful dry cleaning and cover it up, but the fabric appears to be old and fragile, so I might have to renew it after al

Is there a source for pre-manufactured upholstery items (seat covers, door panels, headliner, carpet) for these cars? Or is this a project for an upholstery shop or a DIY? How about an OEM-like fabric, is it available anywhere?

 

And here is a picture. Will have more once I pick-up the car over the weekend ?

[LazyK]

https://smsautofabrics.com/

 

 

[desoto1939]

Not a lot of premade upholstery items for the MoPar like you find for Ford and Chevy.  Mostly you will either have to find a material and color and style, which i mean small stripes, or wide strips or solid color to complement the color of the car and also headliner.

 

An upholstery job can be done by yourself. If you try to do this keep the original panels as templates and the door panels as templates.

 

If you do not have a good heavy sewing machine then you will also have to figure that into the cost, along with the materials.  Also get more that what you really need especially if you are doing stripes on the seats.  If the striped do not lineup from the front of the front seat against the striped on the seating area it will stand out like a sore thumb.

If you are going to spend the money for original material such as mohair then this is costly, so why chance it to error and your learning experience and alot of your valuable time. Go to the upholstery guy, he doest it correct and you get a finished car in return and you just drive away with a nice interior and get to enjoy the car.

 

Rich Hartung

Desoto1939@aol.com

[Bingster]

There is a guy on YouTube who has a series of videos on reupholstering his 48? Chevy. He goes into all of it. A good video, but it's a lot of work and he made some mistakes.

The seats in his car were more or less similar to mine, a '47 Desoto.

 

I also did find a source for seat covers, but I don't think they'd serve as anything you'd want to keep in the car once it's done.  But for me to throw over the front seat while I'm working on it is great. I am amazed at the low cost. It's about $40.00.

[Ivan_B]

Thank you for all the replies. The sites I browsed seem to be way off with the fabric types they have available, and I could not find anything pre-made. I've heard about the heavy-duty industrial sewing machines, etc., but I am really not looking forward to re-upholstering the interior since I have some understanding about how involving that is ?

Taking the car to an upholstery shop also does not seem like a very good idea since I prefer to keep things as much original as possible.

 

Thus far, I am thinking to do the following:

1) dry clean everything (I have a washing vacuum)

2) patch poles, etc.

3) buy some cheap fabric (and carpet) and just do simple pull-on and tie-down covers for individual pieces, including the door panels, to cover the original fabric and slow down its further destruction.

 

This should enable me to comfortably use the car, while I am thinking about what to do with it next. I am just hoping that I'll be able to carefully dry clean the old materials. Thus far, the headliner looks the worst and appears to be fragile at places. I'll need to be really careful not to suck the whole thing into the vacuum ?

 

Maybe I'll post some pictures after I am done, if it looks presentable.

[desoto1939]

the headliner is a very sensitive material and it has a short nap. If you are not sure about cleaning then do not do it. Once you have tried to clean it and the nap gets matted or comes out of the backing then it will lokk een worse and a whole new headliner will need to be installed and you will have lost the originality to the car.

 

Rich Hartung

[Ivan_B]

Thank you for the warning. I'll have to try to do it very carefully, somewhere at the back corner, to see whether or not it is doable. The original headliner looks very poor, has moth holes, and a huge oil stain right above the front seat, for some reason. It also seems to be the source of the old car smell, since the seats and other things do not seem to smell as strong as the headliner does.

[Sniper]

8 hours ago, Ivan_B said:

a huge oil stain right above the front seat, for some reason

 

Brylcreem

[Dan Hiebert]

Your interim plan looks good to me.  I prefer originality as much as possible myself, if it's in presentable condition.  But originality that looks and smells bad (not that well-seasoned old car smell, that always reminds me of my Grandpas' cars) just doesn't blow my kilt up.  

 

For consideration, this is what I did with our D24; There were no kits available back then, either.  I did not take the car to an upholstery shop, and like you, I didn't have the equipment, or see myself doing all that work to do the whole thing myself.  This being 30 years ago there were options available for materials that closely matched the original, in theory there should be more now.  But I had a reputable shop make a kit for me with non-original style materials, but original patterns.  I don't know where they got the patterns, but it was an old well-established shop.  If they had needed something from my car for a pattern they would have asked, but they didn't.  So, a local shop made the kit, and I installed it.  A little more expensive than if a kit had been available off the shelf, but significantly less expensive than taking the car to a shop.  Original appearing materials are available that are more durable than the original, and that the vast majority can't tell the difference in appearance.    

[Ivan_B]

Slowly but steadily, I am making some progress.

Old things:

 

And new things:

 

 

All the interior pieces, except the headliner, were removed and cleaned. I must've used some very mild detergent because virtually none of the stains, etc., came out. Anyway, the fabric was refreshed, so this is good. I just carefully dry-vacuumed the headliner and will leave it like that, for now. The floor, doors, trunk, and all other corrosion-prone places were oiled for protection from the inside.

 

I am currently putting the new fabric in place, took me the whole day to do the rear seat and panels. This is a really quick DIY work, I am not even sewing anything thus far. Nevertheless, it looks alright and expected to work okay. The new fabric is not even close to stock, but I got it at a memorial day sale for around ~130 for the whole car ?

Should work well for a temporary solution.

[Ivan_B]

Just came back from an annual vacation and installed the new carpet and glove box lining. Hopefully, the interior should be completely assembled in a day or two and I'll finally be able to drive the car ?

[soth122003]

Looking sharp. Since you're in Florida, you come by and do mine next. LOL

 

Joe Lee

[Ivan_B]

On 7/5/2023 at 9:26 PM, soth122003 said:

Since you're in Florida, you come by and do mine next.

Oh, sure! Bring it in, no guarantees as to how it will look, though ?

 

And the interior is 95% done. I am still debating whether or not I should install carpet corners at the back bottom of the seat (how it used to be) or just cover the old one with cloth. Also, had to temporarily put cardboard on the floors while I am looking for appropriate rubber mat material.

 

Drove the car around the neighborhood, yesterday, what a feeling! ?

[Cannuck]

Good for you looking good .

Your oil stain on the ceiling is an old mouse nest pee stain ,and most definitely the source of the old car smell.

 

[Ivan_B]

@Cannuck You are probably right. There was mice in the car (I found hidden acorns all over the place, and a small hole leading into the back of the front seat, indicating a small rodent). There was also plenty of cotton in odd places. I thought this cotton was from the seats, but could not find the source, until I realized that it came from the headliner. There are also small claw marks between the sun visors... I saved all the cotton, maybe I'll put it back one day ?

 

Actually, the car does not smell that bad (after I cleaned and covered mostly everything up) anymore. I am mostly smelling the new carpet now If the naughty smell comes back, I'll try to gas it up with some organic neutralizing chemicals (forget the name of that stuff).