Hey guys. My body shop friend is going to swap the mint leather 1990 126 300 series gasser interior into my 1983 300SD. The dash, telescoping wheel, seats, console, carpets and basically everything except for the headliner. I am wondering how many cans of SEM paint I need to buy for him to spray the original headliner to the match the rest of the new Beige interior going in? I will order the prep spray and cleaner also so it comes out looking good. Thanks in advance! John

You can buy the sem colors by the gallon and shoot them out of a gun. Comes out a bit neater and is much more economical than buying a ton of cans. Ask your body shop friend where he gets his supplies, they should stock the sem colors. If they have a decent color matcher there, he can do a custom color match. I know this because I work at an auto paint supply store.

Sorry I didn't read the first post clearly enough, I thought you were repainting the whole interior. 3-4 cans should do it. I would mix woolite and water 10:1 in a spray bottle, spray, agitate, and then fill a spray bottle with pure water and repeat. Let it dry out, perhaps with the aid of a hair dryer on cool (don't want to melt the glue). Maybe wait a day or so and then hit it with the SEM. Top notch stuff, will not fade away or rub off if the prep work was done correctly.

I work in a bodyshop, and for re-painting interior parts we use DuPont Vinyl coatings, it works really great, but I don't like the way it nearly fills in texture. I like SEM alot, but if you're painting a dark colored panel a light color use LIGHT coats and your paint usage may increase...
As for the leather, SEM's leather prep works...leather contains left over tanning solutions and color can bleed thru. some red scotch brite (flame suit please!) and comet should prep and degrease very nicely, do it twice if ARMOUR ALL has been used in the car at any time...

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I've found that the technique for leather and vinyl are completely different for good results:

For vinyl, I spray much like I would paint, letting the coating "flash" to glossy as I move. Overlapping carefully as it dries extremely quickly, you will leave stripes if you overlap dried with wet.

For leather, very light mist coatings must be applied to build slowly.

I use another product that works better IMO for leather, but SEM is easier to work with as it dries so fast and overspray is largely dust.

To qualify this I have changed the interior colors of several 35' to 40' motorhomes' dashboard and overhead areas as well as dinette booths and captain's chairs:
http://www.millercoachworks.com/OffCoach4.html
park your cursor over the captain's chair and also note the different dash colors.
and:
http://www.millercoachworks.com/OffCoach1.html
Looking at the upper and lower dash, don't fall in love with the heated/ventilated/power/air-ride Recaro though, my butt already did.

I have had great results. If you're using multiple cans look for the lot code on the cap to ensure you're getting all cans the same color / manufacturing lot.

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Gone to the dark side

- Jeff

Two cans will be plenty to do a whole headliner.

I did every single piece of carpet in the car and the kick panels with three cans.

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1985 300SD "Sady" 235k miles
Wont Start for Anything!