I have a 1989 Spider, my carpets are faded but still in good shape. Has anyone used Rit to dye their carpets? I'm experimenting with a few was to restore my carpets from orange where the sun did its job back to a nice coco brown. Any pointers would be welcome!
some ideas in these threads, some using SEM spray and some dying with Rit.
as your spider likely still has the original one piece formed carpet, that'll have to come out and is a lot of work.
I'm only trying to darken the faded brown back to brown. The material is in good shape too. I've added vinegar per the instructions. It just seems to wash out after drying.
I may be wrong here but I assumed that the carpets are nylon. Rit directions say to mix a cup of vinegar when mixing to dye nylon. The directions also say to heat on a stove top, that may be my missing link. I'm trying to avoid removing the **** carpets! I may be wasting my time, at least I'm learning something. They sure make it look easy on YouTube though! I guess I'm my own myth Busters!
The carpet fibers are nylon or plastic. It's nearly impossible to get a dye to impregnate plastic. You might get a dye to "coat" the nylon fibers, but you should fully expect that coating to rub off on to anything that rubs against it (such as any white clothing your wife or girlfriend is wearing when you drive her to an outdoor picnic or luncheon party). Spray paint might work better, but fool around with "band aids" at your own risk.
RIT makes dye specifically for synthetic fabrics. I’ve used it with a spray bottle to redye some faded black trunk carpet in my non-Alfa and it came out okay.
Color match on brown is going to be a tad tricky, I’d think.
There are probably 10,000 Spiders out there who need carpets. You would think some manufacturer would set up and run some new, molded carpets exactly as they were from the factory. Of course I know nothing about how that is done, and how ridiculous the cost might be......... but it sure would be nice. I have the same problem as Farina - orange faded brown.
I agree.
I wonder which company made the molded carpets for Alfa back then?...be good if they had the old mold/die stashed away
Knox auto carpets in Australia have a great u-tube video (search "molded carpet")....looks easy with the right equipment.....just need someone to make the male/female mold/die!
for my 2 cents, I removed the carpet, heated a vat of H2O & vinegar with camping stove & weighted down the carpet to keep below water level and let it sit for a coupe of days.
It changed a gray to dark gray with jet black Ritt.
I wouldn't give it to much hope to achieve a solid color change.
but I do like my results
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