Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

The original crash pad on my S4 Elan is starting to go off colour after all these years. Is there any product on the market that I can use to make it black again?

Assuming your crash pad is plastic, try:-

• Armorall plastic restorer (matte)
• McGuires plastic restorer, same as Armorall but has less silicone in it
• Back to black, a more permanent bumper restorer with black dye in it.

The first two can be removed if you don't like the look of it - the B2B stuff I'm not sure of. I have them in my garage so if you are near Worthing you can drop by and try them if you want.

Cheers
JonB

Black Vinyl paint = job done!

I?ve used back to black on the switches and it does work, but sadly only for a few weeks / a month or so. Ok if you?re happy to keep on applying it but essentially only a short term fix.

Gtechniq C4 trim restorer...... you need to spend a bit of time in the prep but gives quite a nice original look.

Work uses Britemax Obsidian Quartz Trim Restorer but it's not that much better than C4 and is quite a lot more expensive.

Really good for switches....... they need to be spotlessly clean but look great when done.

The ceramic trim restorers are a bit like Back to black but you dont need to keep topping it up.

Clean it with panel wipe then black shoe polish. Follow the instructions on the tin to the letter. Works well on the door cards too. Probably not a good treatment for the steering wheel though.

Autoglym Black Dye could be another option.

I had a brown leatherettte (?) covered crashpad and door panels. As part of a refurb in 2001 they were recoloured black.

However it never really dried, it was always sticky, and I finally got fed up with it and spent some hours wiping the black off by using petrol soaked rags.

(in the open air needless to say }

SEM makes various colors of a paint for vinyl. I used a grey on the black bubble seal around the doors on my Sabra GT to match the interior color. The automotive paint shop suggested using a product called Bulldog Adhesion Promotor on the seal before applying the color coat. Excellent product, as even scuffing shoes across the seal getting in and out has not damaged the paint.

Does anyone know any tricks for softening vinyl with UV damage? the colour seems to be the easy bit and adding UV protection now isn't too hard but it's not going to stop cracks appearing in original crash pads.