Recovering Speaker Grills

[Guest ReattaFan1]

Im doing a project on my Reatta that involves gutting out the interior to access the sub flooring. I figured while I have this stuff out clean it up well and do some touch up on the sun bleached areas. Ive got the paint that's a close match on the beechwood to repair the vinyl but I need to recover these speaker grills. Instead of sticking with the tan color I was thinking on going with a black spandex material. Im just curious if anyone has done this? Wanting a census on how it looks

[wws944]

Speaker grille cloth should be 'acoustically transparent'. If you want black, an easy place to get it may be at Radio Shack. They sell (or at least used to sell) a pack that was several square feet for a few dollars. If there is a place like Jo-Ann or Hancock Fabrics in your area, they might also stock some. Naturally, there are also a bunch of on-line places. Maybe Madisound?

[KDirk]

I'll second this on using proper speaker cloth. Also some other tips, from when I did mine:

1. When doing the rear speaker grilles (with concave curvature) you will need to lightly cover the plastic form with spray adhesive before applying the new cloth. If you don't, it will "pucker" and bubble in the curve and will look rather poor. I used a general purpose clear spray adhesive, very light application so it wouldn't saturate through the cloth. Then applied the cloth over that, and glued similarly onto the back edge, while making sure it was pulled uniformly tight so there were no creases on the front corners.

2. Both front and back grilles will need same spray adhesive around the back edges so the cloth can be pulled taut and then folded over in place on the rear of the plastic forms.

3. To trim the excess cloth off the back after securing, this is the best trick I found. Get a Weller soldering gun kit (usually a dual heat 100/140w gun in a kit with different tips and some solder, also handy for electrical work) that comes with a plastic cutting tip. Use this to "hot cut" through the speaker cloth cleanly to take off excess on the back side of the plastic form. Leave about 3/8" of cloth overlap on the back side so it has some hold to it and won't pull off later.

If you look closely, you will see that this is how they did it at the factory, as there is a slight "melt" line in the plastic visible when the old cloth is removed. Note that trying to cut stretch speaker cloth any other way is an exercise in frustration, as it will snag with most blades.

Also, I think black would probably look OK with a tan interior. A lot of cars with tan interior use black for a contrasting color in the trim on the door panels and seats. If I had a car with a tan interior and was redoing it, I might even do black carpet instead of tan, as it won't show stains the way tan does. Of course, mud, salt and the like will show badly on black but it needs to be kept clean no matter what color it is.

KDirk

[Rawja]

I'd stick with tan. Just my two cents.

[wws944]

I saw a Reatta in a wrecking yard a while back that had a beechwood interior, and someone had redone the carpeting in black. I didn't like the look. I agree with Roger that tan/beechwood would look best.

As an aside, I wrote down the VIN of the Reatta and discovered that it was in Barneys database. It was one of the highest mileage cars in the DB (over 300k), and the DB entry was apparently made in 2003. So it may have had over 400k miles on it when it hit the yard. The body didn't look bad either. But someone had methodically ruined just about every useful part on the car. I need to give Barney the VIN.

[Jim]

I agree with Roger and others. I have had some parts cars here where they covered the grills in a black material and I didn't like the looks of it.

Now having said that , I just happen to have all four speaker grills available in tan.

Jim

[Guest ReattaFan1]

Thanks Guys for your input. Based on them Ill keep my colors original.