MGB Colorbond Autumn Leaf paint

[Joe Reed]

A previous owner of my car changed the interior from Beige to Autumn Leaf - which I prefer anyway. Problem is, he didn't complete the job. When I got the car it had nice Autumn Leaf seats and door cards, but black door pulls, black door top rails...and old, dirty original beige kick panels and rear cockpit panels.

Using Autumn Leaf vinyl-by-the-yard from Victoria British I recovered the kick panels, rear cockpit panel, cockpit rail and door top rails. I eventually found a nice pair of door pulls. One thing, though, had always bugged me. The door seals. They are still the original beige. As far as I can determine, no one makes the original style seals in Autumn Leaf.

So.....here's my plan. I just ordered a rattle can of Colorbond Autumn Leaf vinyl paint from Victoria British. It appears to be available only through them since the part number isn't even listed on Colorbond's website. I know people have used this stuff to change colors on their seats and it's held up very well, so I shouldn't be a problem on the door seals.

Once it arrives I'll have a new, small project to attend to. I'll post before & after pics when it's done...

 

[Joe Reed]

In case anyone else is considering using this product, here's my experience. First, here's the "before" pic. You can see the original beige door seals - and how noticeable they are next to the Autumn Leaf panels. Also notice that the fiber washer between the window winder and the door panel is beige as well. The aftermarket speaker grilles are some color of Krylon paint - the closest I could match the panels with rattle can paint I could find locally. That part wasn't too bad - but it isn't right. Still, it was better than the big, black grilles.

I removed the speaker grilles and window washers and painted them. IMHO the color match came out great.

Next, I tackled the more difficult part - the door seals. I started removing them, but then became concerned that just removing and replacing them would ruin these 38 year old seals...so I decided to mask them and paint them in place. I think I made the right choice. The end result came out just fine, the masking probably didn't take any longer than removing and replacing the seals - and I didn't screw them up!

The masking was accomplished mostly with duct tape (which stuck to the rubber where the masking tape wouldn't) and aluminum foil (my favorite masking product). I pulled the kick panels away from the seal to allow better access to paint the edges. I'm really, really happy with the results. So is my wife. Here's a couple of pics of the result. It looks even better in person than in the pics.

The stuff isn't cheap as rattle can paint goes - including shipping to me it was $23.20. Still that's a lot better than new seals, which aren't available in Autumn Leaf anyway - plus I allowed me to fix the other two items that were nagging me. Colorbond is a well known brand that has been around for a long time. If it had been some no-name paint I never heard of I might have been less willing to try it.

The product is easy to use. I sprayed 3 or 4 light coats a few minutes apart (it dries quickly) and didn't have any issues with runs. Although it's designed to use on vinyl upholstery it worked just fine on both the fiber washers and the plastic speaker grilles. I didn't buy their prep/cleaner ($10.95) or their adhesion promoter or satin clear coat ($15.95 each), although some of those product might be needed or desired if you were painting seats, door cards, etc.

One thing you have to remember about Autumn Leaf, as opposed to the other MG interior colors, is that it isn't simply one shade of brown - it's 2 or 3 colors in a mottled look. While that's not an issue on what I was doing, it might be if you wanted to use it on larger panels. While the color is an outstanding match, the single solid color on a large panel would not be an exact match to any non-painted panels. It might be just fine for things like the kick panels or the rear cockpit panel which aren't that visible, but if you sprayed door cards with it, it wouldn't exactly match your seats (if they were actual Autumn Leaf vinyl).