Few interior upgrade questions.

[Shadow]

I think this is in the right place, not sure because I posted a similar topic a couple of days ago but it was not approved due to being "off-topic".

I'm sure you guys get alot of questions regarding this but any help would be appreciated.

I am looking to swap out my tan interior, swap in black/gray interior. I'm looking for help from someone who has tackled the project themselves but any opinions/help is welcome.

How hard is it or if it's even possible to replace the roof carpet with black carpet, same with floor carpet. I am doing this myself and I do not want to screw anything up naturally The floor carpet seems easy enough but the roof seems near impossible but I may be looking into it too much..

Also, I've researched changing the dashboard lights on the forums and off and I've read the complete lighting guide but I'm still unsure on one thing.

Do you just unplug the old dash lights and put in new ones or do you have solder? I know you have solder to get the AC unit, stereo, clock, etc but I'm confused bout the dashboard gauges.

And finally, any ideas where I can find the black interior pieces? I was thinking junk yards but solaras are pretty rare imo, is there a website that sells them?

Thanks:)

[Shadow]

I have a GEN 1. 2001 Solara SLE btw

[ACProductions]

Hmmm It's kinda tough to answer this but I will try my best.

The panels (the side panels at least) are decently easy, that is at least in comparison to Hondas. Not to many screws, nice easy bolts, and mostly plastic clips (Be sure not to lose to many otherwise the interior won't look right afterwards). The headliners and carpets are the second to the dash which is by far the BIGGEST PAIN IN THE VAGINE. Most definitely not for beginners

Stuff like interior swapping takes a lot of time and more importantly than that is patience, patience, PATIENCE. Seriously, go to fast and you'll only end up F**king things up.

Now the lights. You really need to decided what lights you want to change. The dome lights and such are easy, same with the dash lights, The switches tend to be a little more difficult since they are more "Buried".

For 99.9% of the interior, you WON'T need soldering. All bulbs have a twist lock base so all you have to do is, un-twist, pull out, pull out bulb, replace with new bulb, twist back in. DONE

If you are considering LEDs be prepared to do them at least twice as the bulbs tend to be polarized, which means they have to go in one specific way. If they don't work, you just have to pull them out and turn them 180 then re-assemble

This pic shows you the bulbs (I pulled mine out but the highlighted holes are generally what you want to replace. Keep in mind mine is also a manual w/o traction control. You will probably have extra bulbs that need to get changed)



Hope this helps

[dinoxor]

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=51981
made a tut a while back hope this help

[Shadow]

Thanks! May I ask what the hard part is about the carpet? The cutting? Could I dye the roof carpet instead of replacing it with new and having to worry about the cutting and what not?

and thank you for the tut, it will def help me when I get to changing the bulbs:)

[SleeperSolara]

You just need to find a Solara that has black / charcoal interior to do the swap.

[CamryOnBronze]

I swapped my first Solara's interior from tan to black/gray. It's very straightforward and pretty self explanatory- remove pieces carefully and make sure you remove all of the hardware that holds each piece in. If you have to go all he-man on it, something probably isn't right.

I replaced the carpet with new black carpeting from stockinteriors.com. You have to trim it to fit, but it isn't too difficult at all. I think it was about $150 or so back in 2008 when I did it. As for the headliner, I spray dyed it black with duplicolor interior paint. The texture was slightly rough, but it looked great and held up just fine.



It can for sure be done easily- it's just a matter of getting all of the pieces and installing them. I also sprayed the fake woodgrain black while the car was apart. Hope that helps a bit- good luck!

Damon