I was trying to find a way to upholster the C and D pillar panel that goes around the rearmost side window. I was messing with the panel while trying to cover it in tweed and found a method that requires some cutting and hot glue work, but it makes life so much easier! You can do the whole panel in one piece minus one seam, but that seam looks very, very good. Here are some pictures of the panel done, the seam on the panel and the reinforcement I did using hot glue and some ABS plastic strips. I hope this help some of you that wanna get this done!! All you need is material, spray glue, a hot glue gun, something to cut the plastic (I used a jigsaw) and something to reinforce the cut with. Take a look at my pics to see how it was done!

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...5/CDPillar.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...amCDPillar.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...ceCDPillar.jpg

 

pics are too small.

i know that there are a couple of orlando people trying to figure this out, please provide better pics. I'll pass this along to them

 

Lemme give a little better explanation as to what I did.

I cut the panel on the top side just as I was almost done covering it. I used a jigsaw with a wood blade and cut right next to a support rib that's molded onto the panel. This gives you something both horizontal and vertical to glue to. After cutting the panel I finished the upholstery and then held the lined the two cuts back up and used some hot glue at the top and then the bottom, just a little right now to line the panel up. After those two hot glue "tacks" , I ran a thin bead of hot glue along the seam, let it dry and then ran a larger bead , but do this a small section at a time since the hot glue will remelt and misalign the panel. After the glue was dry, I got a piece of 1/8" thick ABS (I think plumbers strapping could be used as well) and glued it to the panel, then surrounded it with hot glue. The second support piece you see is made of ABS also but is heated and bent with a small "U" in the middle so that it goes over the support rib and sits flat on both sides. Lemme know if anyone needs and clarification or help!

 

OK, I'll got take some more at a higher resolution.

 

Here are some bigger pics 800x600. I don't wanna do much larger since all we have available here in this small German town is ISDN...go 128k...lol

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...llarDoneLG.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...llarSeamLG.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...arREinfLG1.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...arReinfLG2.jpg

Oh, and lemme tell you, the pics look OK, but the panels look great in person. The seam blends very, very well and is barely noticeable.

 

why dont you just stitch it?

sorry 1ts shot bad

 

very nice and clean...

 

looks killer nice job

 

great work....both look clean....

 

Couldn't that be done without cutting the panel if you used a big donut-shaped piece of cloth that was stretchy enough? I think you could cut a big oval piece of cloth that would be wider where the plastic panel was wider, and stretch and tuck all the way around without having to cut or seam.

 

I didn't stitch it because I wanted as few seams as possible to keep a clean look. DOn't get me wrong, your's looks great, I just like less seams.

 

It all depends on what type of material you use. I used tweed which has limited stretch, and I also tried one piece but it wasn't going to work.

 

Oh, thanks everyone for the compliments, I wish you could see them in person, they look awesome! I will have them in the car today and I'll take a pic of everything I have done so far.

 

hi-heat vinyl works well to wrap the C&D pillar with no cutting. Tweed is tough to work with due to the limited stretch and trying to line up the tweed pattern so they don't look off.

 

Yeah, heat formable vinyl is nice. The shop I help out at gets the Select Products heat formable, but they sell it for about $55 a meter. I really didn't want vinyl though...I wanted to soften up the interior a little and add some color along with it.

 

you could always customize the panels, put speakers in there, people put amplifiers in there, a fishtank??? maybe. I'm sure you can come up with some wild ideas that would be a one-off.