Hi everybody, Happy new year! I had parked my car during the winter here so I can save up money to redo a few things. I have grey leather interior in my formula but I have seen certain t/a's with black/ebony interior. Can I actually use those in my car if I find them at the wreckers or something or are they different for each type? Trying to save much money as I can , Thanks!

yep, they'll work.

Thanks! So far I have only seen couple of t/a's with black interior(collectors), figured should get a nice black one(grays all ...well ...grayed out). Is it better if I just go look at wreckers or is there other ways like painting my current dash. I know you can buy all the other carpet stuff at www.stockinteriors.com but they dont have a dash.

The best thing with the dash is to see if you can find one in good shape out of a wrecked car that's close to you since that would probably be the easiest. I know there's stuff out there that you can use to "paint" the "plastic" interior pieces on our cars but I'm not sure how well they work or how good they actually look.

BTW the reason I said to see if you can find one close to you is I have seen dashes for sale at different places that sell used parts but most of the time they won't ship the dashes, especially the dash pad, because they have a tendency to crack/break during shipping, so most of the times even those places will only allow "pick-up" of the dash components.

Oh another thing, when you're looking for the shift/center console be aware that the 97-02 shift/center consoles are different then the 93-96. Also make sure that the shift plates are different for cars that have/had 2.73 gears (no 1st gear showing) as compared to the cars that have/had 3.23 and 3.42 gears in them (1st gear shows on those shift plates).

also keep an eye on the classifieds on some of the bigger message boards like ls1tech.com and camaroz28.com since some people will part out cars and sell the parts on there. Ebay is good also.

Wow, glad I asked before I started looking for them...so what do you all think? Is it worth it or just simply not worth the whole hassle and cost. I mean greys not that bad...especially with some nice seats right?

Another thing you might consider is buying aftermarket leather covers and replacing the upholstery. You can clip the hog rings on the bottom of the seat, pull the old covers and replace them with new hog rings. It's not that bad, just takes some time and patience. Most of the replacment covers I've seen run in the $800.00 range for a full leather set and yes they come in black leather.

Actually whether it is worth it or not is what you think changing over everything is worth to you and to the way the car will look to you. To some it wouldn't be worth the hassle/cost, to others it would be.

But if you can find a car that's been wrecked and can get everything at a good price, I say go for it. Just be careful removing all of the stock/original interior pieces so you don't damage any of it, then put the black stuff in. If you like the way it looks you can keep it that way and sell the stock/original pieces to recover some or all of the cost of the black pieces, if not you can take the black pieces out again, put the stock/original pieces back in and sell the black pieces for what you bought them all for and then you wouldn't be out anything.

But a good looking interior in good shape, no matter what the color, always looks good in our cars.

Also another good place to look is on Craigslist.com, I've seen stuff for sale on there too at reasonable prices but I don't know if there's a list for near where you live or not.

If you want to preview all the stock options - may be even buy look at

http://www.tacreationsusa.com/

Of course finding local is usually cheaper

LOL, I just relalized I like my steering wheel and its grey! ...so have to buy new steering wheel but I think they have stingy laws here about airbags and all that.....but yeah any interior looks good on our cars. well I will check out the prices and see what happens...

Yeah there's plenty more pieces you might not have considered too that are different in the interior. If you go for a black interior you may not feel the need to change every last little piece since the gray still work alongside. Now say you wanted tan, then you would have to change everything to make it look right.

The money to change everything can be huge, and just doing seats isn't going to be super cheap. Good leather ones from a T/A are gonna cost ya for sure.

well I may just add new seats since looks like its a hassle and too much price wise, has anyone ever seen interiors where people have put custom gauges where the three airvents are in the middle of the dash, I think they look pretty cool but not quite sure if its the best thing to do. Has anybody done that?

Yeah that's a common spot for alternate/additional gauges. It seems those are there for just such purposes, just works so well.

Yea I've seem them there before and know several people who have at least one gauge there. When they've used a single gauge they've put it in the middle vent.

But I will say this, if you live someplace where it get cold in the winter I wouldn't put them there cause you'd be surprised at the amount of heat you lose when you block those vents. If that's the case I'd go with an A-piller gauge pod. They aren't that hard to install and you can get them where they will hold different numbers of gauges and you don't block off the center vents that way.

I guess that is part of the appeal for gauges there for me... I never use those vents. I never run A/C, and when I use heat I use the floor vents. I can't stand hot air blowing in my face. Plus the "sleeper" lover in me totally thinks A pillar gauges are nothing more than a gaudy ricer trick that is too visible to others while being out-of-place for gauges as compared to the driver's field of vision. If your car inludes anything more than straight line fun you need all the visibility possible around an already huge A pillar too. Just the way I see it

As for interior mods and keeping warm may be concerned, if you are getting new seats or recovering old ones, consider universal heated seat kits available. Having a seat directly warm your buns is the greatest. That is the ultimate cold weather comfort in a car and it takes effect much quicker on a cold morning drive to work.

I don't like hot air blowing in my face either but I do like warm hands, that's why with at least the outer one on the drivers side I've got it pointed at the steering wheel along with the one by the door. The center one I've got pointed down towards the shift knob and the outer one on the passenger side, well I let my daughter put that one and the one by passenger door where she wants those.

Jon, where did you find the universale heated seat conversion kits and do you remember how much they cost? Heated seats would be great to have especially with my leather seats cause in the winters around here the seats can be pretty darn cold when you first get in the car and take a while to warm up thereby causing certain parts on my anatomy that shouldn't get cold to get really cold. Brrrrrrrrrr

LOL, well it does get cold here...but I dont usually use the main vents, I am wondering if i can just block just part of it and manage. But yeah I dont really want an a-pillar guage since i think the vents look nicer but hey,they both look good on our cars right

SummitRacing.com - universal heated seat kits - click here

I'm sure somebody else offers these or something similar, I just remember flipping through a catalog and seeing it so I knew for sure at least Summit did. You have to install them under a seatcover I believe, but they do the job for sure. I don't have any of my own, but I try to get lot rides at work with them during the winter.

I didnt think y'all drove the birds in the winter up there???

Yea we drive our 'Birds all year long, well at least I do.

Cool, thanks Jon for the link. Appricate it.

I had my car since 2003 and i been driving it every winter except for this one. It doesnt really snow that bad here...rains like no tomorrow though...

yep we get the rain too but it never snows