Interior Swap. Worth It?

[brandon7 0]

I have recently aquired a second 205 Gti, it was a bargain I could just not turn down.

 

I already have a red 205 Gti identical to my new one apart from the new one is in better condition apart form the interior. I plan to keep the new one and sell on my current car

 

 

Before I make a massive mistake how easy and how many hours would it take to swap the interiors over and how easy is this to do for an amateur? I want to make sure i get it all back in right and that it looks as good. THis inculde dash carpets seats door cars and interior side trim.

 

Any advise on this would be great. Thanks alot!

[GLPoomobile 958]

When you know what your doing, you can strip an interior out (bar the dash) in probably a couple of hours. For your first time, I'd maybe allow 5 or 6 hours so you can take it slowly and not go breaking anything.

 

I've not done a dash, and wouldn't want to unless really necessary. You can of course swap over parts of the dash, but the actual dash itself is a fairly big job.

[Henry Yorke 269 3 Cars]

5 bolts per front seat. 4 nuts for the back and a centre bracket. Centre console is a little fiddly to line up the screw holes but not that hard. Door cards are pocket off and speaker grille off. As has been said, the main part of the dash js more complex

[brandon7 0]

THere is nothing wrong with the dash and would not need to change it but the colours are wrong. If I put the black seats into my newer car it should it has a grey dash and red carpets so might look weird.

 

So the dash would need to be done also. I am jsut slightly afraid it wont go back in correctly

 

Thanks for help so far. Any more info welcomed

[engine killer 6]

just do it gently and NO brutal force at all. don't forget any 205 on the road is almost 20 years old or older, cracking is easy.

[GLPoomobile 958]

You could potentially dye the dash in situ. I was thinking of doing this on mine.

 

Black plasticare may hopefully take care of that quite easily. You'd need to try it on a discrete test patch to make sure it absorbs OK, as it can be a bit funny on certain plastics. But if it works, it should be easy to do with a little bit of masking in certain areas. Then you'd just need to get a black Ph2 heater control panel.

[Anthony 1,002]

If you've already removed the rest of the trim, then really the main dash section isn't that difficult - from memory, there's only 5 nuts/bolts that secure it, and a couple of wiring plugs.

 

What takes the time is removing all the other plastic dash parts that are attached, which you'd be doing anyway if you were going to dye the dashboard.

 

I have no idea how dying an area as large as the dash would turn out, but what I will warn you is that plasticare is NOT an exact match for the original dash plastics - I've done a few bits on both Phase 1.5 and Phase 2, and in both cases whilst you'd not notice in isolation, with the dyed and original plastics next to each other, the colour difference is noticeable and would, in my opinion, stick out like a sore thumb on something like the dashboard that's well lit and right in front of you. In my case, it was the rear wheelarch cover plastics (that always get badly scratched and faded) that I dyed and hence isn't as visible.

 

As for grey dash/trim and black seats, that was how the last of the Phase 1.5's (around a 1990/G plate) were as standard.