What a dreary day….It’s rained here now for 2 days solid. We’re getting whats left of hurricane Hanna. We needed it though, things were starting to dry up. It’s hard to believe we needed the rain after all we had this spring. I makes it hard doing interior repair when it’s so wet outside though, water based dyes take forever to dry and whats really hard is trying to fix a cigarette burn in cloth when the humidity is so high, virtually impossible. But I did manage to get some stuff done today, and one that I’m going to talk about today and it’s those ugly screw holes in plastic that have been left from the previous owner of the automobile.

I got into a 2007 Chevy Avalanche today at one of my dealers to clean and repair the drivers seat. When I got done with the seat and was wiping up some dirt on the carpet, I happened to look up and directly under the steering column on the dash panel were 2 screw holes in the dash from a trailer brake that had been removed, I about choked. This truck didn’t have but maybe 30k miles on it and screws had already been put in the dash, I couldn’t believe it. There has got to be a better place to mount those things, but whats done was done and now I had to fix it.

This repair is not that hard to do, and can really make a difference in the appearance of an automobile. Automotive plastic no matter where it is in the vehicle can be repaired the same way, this repair works for all screw holes and small holes as well. Now the holes say the size of pencil eraser are about the biggest you can go with this one. The holes you see where a toggle switch has been are really too big for this fix.

First and foremost is getting rid of the burr’s and raised area left from the removal of the screw. Most of the time the holes have not been pre-drilled so there’s a raised portion around the holes and burrs left from the threads of the screw as it is screwed into the plastic. To remove this and make the holes level you will need to trim this off. The way I do this is with a brand new razor blade. I use a new one because you will need a very sharp edge to cut the plastic, and not your fingers. Take your razor blade and lay it flat up against the plastic piece and push it through the plastic that is raised up, making the screw hole level with the rest of the area.

Here’s the fix. It’s a kneadable epoxy, it’s like play-do. The stuff I use is Magnum Plastic/Marine & Fiberglass Repair Epoxy Putty. But I have also seen a product on TV that is basically the same stuff, called Mighty Putty, you’ve probably seen it. It’s great, just slice a small amount off knead it into a ball to get the two parts combined, tear a small amount off then push it into the screw hole. Now leave a little bit above the hole, don’t push it all the way through, basically a little glob on top. Grab your 240 grit sandpaper and sand lightly over the glob until it’s level, finishing with a finer grit like 400 or 600. You have to kinda work fast this stuff sets up pretty quickly, 15 minutes to be exact. Inspect the hole and see if it’s all filled in, if not pinch a little more off and push into the hole, sand and inspect. If it’s level and all filled in, your done filling and now it’s time to clean the area thoroughly with your prepping solution.

Sometimes depending on the size of the screw hole and where it’s at, you may need to texture the area a little. Now I use the heavy body water based spray grain for dashes and door panels. I do it the old fashioned way with a mouth atomizer, I have a little more control with it that way. If you have a smooth piece of plastic, then no need for the texturing. Sometimes you may need to apply a surface primer to help fill in the small imperfections on the smooth plastics.

Lastly, apply your grip base then dye the area to match with your water based dyes and then topcoat with the appropriate sheen of topcoat.

When your done the screw holes in the plastic should be gone and look at the difference it makes on the appearance of the automobile, wow.

This fix is a great way to eliminate those unsightly screw holes in automotive plastic dashes and plastic trim panels. As far as that 2007 Chevy Avalanche it turned out pretty good, you could still see the areas just a little, the grain in those dashes are pretty hard to imitate, but it still looked better then two big holes sitting there staring at you on pretty much a new vehicle.

ITW #44229 2OZ Repair Epoxy Putty 2 OZ, Magnum Plastic/Marine & Fiberglass Repair Epoxy Putty, 15 Minute Set Time, 1,500 PSI Bond Strength , Adheres Above Or Below Waterline, Fresh Or Saltwater Application, Dries White, Will Not Shrink And Is Rustproof, Uses Include Plastic, Fiberglass, Plastic, PVC Pipe. *Manufacturer: ITW CONSUMER *Model number: 44229 *UPC Code: 078727442298 *Length: 2.88 *Width: 1.25 *Height: 7.88

Mighty Putty As Seen On TV Mighty putty bonds to almost any surface Easy to use epoxy resin will fix fill and seal almost anything Can be painted sanded machined tapped or drilled when fully cured Easy to use instructions included 3 tubes

Well I hope your holiday weekend was a good one. Labor Day is always the last blast of the summer here for us. We spent our time at the lake soaking up some sun, and fun. It was a beautiful weekend, and the lake was finally back down to pretty much normal from all the rain we’ve had here. This year was definitely one for the record books. With the lake being up so far and so murky that the fishing has been terrible, but I did manage to pull a few out this year. I caught two this time down, a 14″ and a 15″ Bass, not real sure what the weight was on them though, but they were a couple of beauty’s.

As I was sitting there on the dock this weekend I couldn’t help to think of what I was going to write this week. I started thinking of some jobs that have been somewhat of booger for me, and I couldn’t help to think of the fist time I painted silver plastic trim. You know where the paint rubs off or scratches off and leaves you the black plastic underneath. Read the rest of this entry »

Ever had one of those days when it seems as if you were running in circles and tripping over everything, well today was my day. Man what a day, things went smoothly with my repairs, thank god, but I couldn’t hold on to anything and every time I turned around I was either bumping into something (like the edge of doors, ouch!) or tripping over my cords and hoses. Read the rest of this entry »

The infamous foam steering repair….Already you can see I’m not a big fan of this kind of repair, but I have done a lot of them and have had pretty good luck with them. Read the rest of this entry »

Today at work as I was working on a pretty badly cracked up Jeep Grand Cherokee leather seat, and my wife and youngest showed up to say hi. It was quite a nice break from a mind bending repair. She does that every once in a while, it’s great being my own boss and being able to take a break when I want to. As I was saying bye and corralling my 5 year old back into our 2001 Chevy Tahoe, I couldn’t help to notice the carpet. GROSS, and that was an understatement. So ya all know what I did when I got home from work, cleaned carpet. Something my wife has been trying to get me to do now forever. But working on vehicles all day thats usually the last thing I want to do when I get home from work is work on another car but sometimes we have to do what our boss says. Read the rest of this entry »

This was a fun one….Actually it didn’t give me to much of a fit. The leather laid just right, I was able to pull it together quite nicely.

I first cleaned the leather seat thoroughly with my prepping solution, I know I always say this, but I can’t stress prepping enough, it is the only way to a top notch job. Read the rest of this entry »

Today was pretty much a lazy day, didn’t have a real busy day. Did mostly leather repair with a few cloth repairs thrown in. Didn’t get any pics today though.

I wanted to talk about a Volvo S70 that I worked on. This was a definite cracked leather repair. The drivers seat was the worst as usual, but this one I also did the passenger seat and the rear seat base where someone decided to dye it the wrong color. Gotta love the people that think they can cover up dirty seat with a rattle can of dye, what they don’t take into consideration is the customers that buy these cars, it’s pretty sad. Read the rest of this entry »

What a beautiful work day it was here in the Ozarks! We had 60’s in the morning and low 80’s this afternoon, which is really unusual for August.

Well I said in my last post that I would give you guys a post on my daily activities, and heres the first. Thought I’d share a little of what I do on a daily basis, to let you all know in a little more detail of the repairs I do on a daily basis. The way I’m gonna try to do this is to not just list the vehicles I worked on and tell you what I fixed and so on, but I’m gonna pick a couple that either gave me fits or I feel would be a good one to talk about. Some will be long and some short, but I hope to give you a lot of info. Read the rest of this entry »

As you’ve probably noticed on a lot of the newer cars on todays market with a leather interior have a nice little twist to them. A two tone look on the leather seats. Although this looks great and all, dyeing these two tone wonders can be tricky, and can take a while, but if you know the right tricks and use the right materials it can be a breeze. So with that said, heres a few tricks on how to dye a two tone leather seat. Read the rest of this entry »

This is a really impressive interview of a successful blogger who has been making millions of dollars from his automotive blog, Alborz Fallah. Thought you guys might want to see someone blogging for cash.

Alborz Fallah is just a normal blogger like us, he started to blog on June 2006 with 3 different blogs. Only 1 made it a huge success. Alborz started his blog like most people, sitting at home, writing content each day outside of the time he spent at his full time job. His blog grew, he started making money and he just kept working. Today Alborz’s blog has full time employees, he travels to Europe to test some of the most prestigious cars in the world and it’s fair to say he is living a dream making big money writing about a topic he loves. You can hear the complete interview with Alborz done by Yaro Starak here .

Alborz is also a graduated student of Yaro Starak class Blog Mastermind. Seems the class really works, now CarAdvice.com.au has already become the 6′th biggest traffic site in Australia. It’s just a 2 years old blog, and what an amazing achievement.

You have to hear this interview, it’s so inspiring. Ive always loved hearing interviews with successful bloggers. That inspires me to work even harder to be the next successful blogger too. The Interview is available to download in a .pdf file. You can also download the .mp3 where you can listen to it which is better here.

You might also want to check out the Yaro Starak blog class if you want to learn more about blogging for cash, and possilbly follow in Aborz’s footsteps. Go to Yaro Starak Blog Mastermind Class.

Weather change is here and the cracked padded dashes are rolling in. With every weather change I get the phone calls. “My dash is cracked and what can be done to fix it.”

Due to the exposer to old mother nature, these materials become dried out and crack over time leaving you with a crack in your dash. Left unattended this small crack can and will get larger.

There are measures that can be taken to prevent the dash from getting cracked in the first place. Now I know your dash is already cracked and your wanting to know how to fix it, but this will prevent further cracks and keep your car cooler and looking nicer, and well…. for further reference. Read the rest of this entry »

I had a little glitch yesterday when I went to upgrade my WordPress blog and lost my forum. I had to do a little work to get the whole thing going for a while, it was all messed up. There were a couple of WordPress plugins that I had to maneuver around and eliminate to get my blog going, but I’m back but with no forum for now. I am in the process of installing another forum that is going to be a lot better and easier for me and you, so stay tuned for that. Read the rest of this entry »

Automotive interior repair is a skill of a combination of art and magic, yes I said magic…What I really mean is it’s a skill to be able to trick the eye from not seeing an interior repair that has been made, that is the magic.

One little trick that we keep in our bag of pixie dust, is the art of texturizing a repair.

If you look in your automotive interior you see many different textures on the surfaces of the plastic trim pieces, vinyl covered door panels, and your leather and vinyl seats. All of these textures you see we have to imitate in someway to repair whatever has been damaged.

Texturizing a repair takes knowledge of products to use, skill in using them, and a lot of patience. Yes patience, when doing any automotive interior repair, patience is a virtue, if you get in a hurry you will fail, I promise. Read the rest of this entry »

You left the car window down or the sunroof open and there’s a water stain in your car’s leather seat….or your girlfriend spilled here red wine in your leather car seat on a night out on the town….or your kids decided they were a soon to be artist and tried their techniques out on your leather car seat with a pen, arrggg. Got kids myself, so feel your pain. Stain removal in leather seats can be tough, heres a few tricks to help get you going. Read the rest of this entry »

Odor elimination in your car has got to be the most frustrating thing I think in the world. You go to the store and buy spray after spray, and nothing. You buy little fragrance plug ins, and nothing. You try everything under the sun you can think of to get rid of that funk you got going on in your car and nothing seems to work. Believe me been there done that. Read the rest of this entry »

This is definitely not a quick fix or a temporary fix that I’m going to talk about today. This is the way that I repair leather on a daily basis that has been worn or cracked.

Read the rest of this entry »

Resurfacing a leather seat in your automobile with today’s leathers require a real technique and the right leather dye to achieve a professional job. There are 2 types of leather that I have seen and worked on in today’s leather car seats. You have Nubuck leather or as some call it the soft leather and you have the finished leather which is mostly what you see. The leather dyes you use are completely different too. Aniline dye is used with the soft stuff and a water borne urethane dye for the finished leathers, both mixed with premium tannery pigments. Resurfacing leather applies to the finished leather, when you dye suede the aniline dye is a penetrating dye, so heres the right way to apply dyes to a finished leather seat. Read the rest of this entry »

The Dash Peel. A problem I started noticing in some of the earlier model vehicles a few years back and have been fixing them ever since. The cause is the water based dyes being used on dashes and some trim pieces being lifted from the plastic by solvent based dressings and cleaners being sprayed on the inside of our cars in the attempt to keep them looking new and clean.

Solvents and water based dyes just don’t mix, obviously. Read the rest of this entry »

How to mend a vinyl seat is probably going to be your easiest fix, when it comes to vinyl repair. There are those one’s that are a little tricky, but all in all the seat repair is the easiest, there is more padding behind the repair area, under patches can be used to reinforce the repair, they just seem to give me less fits and are easier to mend. Vinyl repair is definitely a game of skill balanced with patience. Taking your time to make your repair look perfect and not just good enough, will make or break a vinyl repair craftsman.

One thing you definitely need to keep in mind is if the hole or crack is to large then is needs to be replaced not mended. I’ve seen some pretty blown out seats in my day and have turned down a lot of work because I know my limitations to my pixie dust, as some of my customers call it ( that is one reason I love my job so much is because the products I use are definitely like magic). If the seat has a hole in it let’s say 3 or more inches maybe 4 but depends on the under structure, it needs to go to an upholstery shop. The thing is a repair is just that a repair, the products are made for small imperfections, not blow outs, that if left can get worse. But by mending them you can make a piece of vinyl look new again and the repair will last longer when done so. Read the rest of this entry »

There are so many different types of automotive leather seat repair, all with different situations and applications. There are holes, scratches, gouges, cuts, scrapes, worn or cracked, and just down right grungy looking leather seats. I think I got them all covered, well in this article we’re going to talk about how to repair a small hole in a leather seat lean back, for those of you who don’t know what a lean back is well it’s the upper part of the seat.

Now when I say small this can apply for a tear up to 1 1/2″ to 2″, probably might go a little bigger, but lets not push it, if it needs to go to the upholstery shop for an insert then that would be better then a crappy looking leather repair on something that probably wouldn’t hold anyways. When in doubt, insert it. Read the rest of this entry »