Interior colors/paint

[saveevryjp1998]

That seat track trim is to an xj rocker style. I bet you may want to check again that color hence it's not an mj piece. Xjs had more colors available from 84-86 that many people have never seen. There was some really strange colors in 84. 

[Minuit]

Just now, saveevryjp1998 said:

That seat track trim is to an xj rocker style. I bet you may want to check again that color hence it's not an mj piece. Xjs had more colors available from 84-86 that many people have never seen. There was some really strange colors in 84. 

That seat is a rocker style seat from an '87 XJ Laredo 2-door with a tan interior. I will be transplanting it onto an MJ base.

[saveevryjp1998]

On 9/12/2019 at 10:52 PM, eaglescout526 said:

I am only wanting to create this post for future visitors or restorations.

 

If anyone has used the SEM interior paint to refresh/restore/make new, should post the color that comes close or is exact match to all years of the MJ interior factory colors.(I'll edit the post as more info comes along)

 

I just found out that SEM's medium grey is dead on for the lighter charcoal grey colors. I will be testing which colors will best restore the dark charcoal dash panels and center console.

 

Colors offered(According to what the catalogue shows me. If I'm missing one please tell me.):

1986: Black, Medium Blue, Cordovan, Garnet, Honey and Tan.

1987: Black, Medium Blue, Cordovan and Tan.

1988: Charcoal, Cordovan, Navy and Tan.

1989: Same as '88 except Tan is now Sand.

1990: Charcoal, Cordovan and Sand.

1991-92: Charcoal, Cordovan and Dark Sand

 

SEM:

Black - 

Medium Blue - Matte Nantucket blue rustoleum . I am sure there is a suitable SEM.

Garnet - 

Honey - SEM Camel

Tan - 

Charcoal(2 colors light and dark) - Medium Grey(SEM) and Dark Grey(rustollium)

Cordovan - Burgundy

Navy - 

Sand - SEM Santa Fe

Dark Sand - 

I'm not sure what the factory names are. I am missing some. 1 in particular is a really light tan color that is almost a cream or off white.

[eaglescout526]

1 minute ago, saveevryjp1998 said:

I'm not sure what the factory names are. I am missing some. 1 in particular is a really light tan color that is almost a cream or off white.

Neat! I pulled what was from the catalog when I first started this. I didn't touch 84 and 85 because those aren't MJ years and I wanted to do the colors of the MJ years and not all years. But yes there's some odd colors for the first two years.

[saveevryjp1998]

I would have to say that tan, sand, and honey are all different shades not due to sun fading. Easy way to compare is the flipping the backside of pieces that have not been exposed to any sun. You'll see the offset shade quickly especially say if it's from sand to honey which are the furthest apart shade wise.

[saveevryjp1998]

It really gets confusing when you mix xj stuff in. There is even more shades of the tan I believe. My 91 xj limited tan interior looks a shade off from any mj tan I've seen. It's almost like a mix of sand and tan. The 84 xj dark blue is cool too since its really not a navy. I found a super strange 84 2 Dr xj once on my travels with a lighter blue and dark blue mix that I've never seen anything like it yet. It had leather seats that matched as well that the stitching was more simple in design than 86 style buckets. I knew they were not custom since I've seen other 84s with the same odd stitching just not in that color.

[schardein]

The SEM camel was a perfect match for the interior of my 79 K5 Blazer.  When I repainted my center console, the only way I could tell where was painted is it didn't have any chips.  In this pic the door panels and dash pad have just been repainted and installed.

[Minuit]

 

I really had no idea what I was getting myself into when I thought "hmm, a tan interior would be nice in this thing" at the spur of the moment. I'm glad I'm not making any attempt to find a complete set of one shade of parts now.

 

All of the grey interiors more or less match no matter what year your parts come from - guess Jeep couldn't decide on a tan color they liked.

[87MJTIM]

My MJ is an 87 Laredo package.  The window sticker states the seats are "tan."  I pulled the interior from a 93 XJ that must be "sand."  The XJ interior is lighter than the MJ colors.  The MJ has more of a brown/orange tint to it.

 

My MJ dash has a crack in it.  I was thinking of swapping the XJ dash, but he shades are diff.  I would want to paint it to more closely match the original color.

 

The camel shade looks closer than the palomino for my MJ

[Minuit]

2 minutes ago, 87MJTIM said:

My MJ is an 87 Laredo package.  The window sticker states the seats are "tan."  I pulled the interior from a 93 XJ that must be "sand."  The XJ interior is lighter than the MJ colors.  The MJ has more of a brown/orange tint to it.

 

My MJ dash has a crack in it.  I was thinking of swapping the XJ dash, but he shades are diff.  I would want to paint it to more closely match the original color.

 

The camel shade looks closer than the palomino for my MJ

Do you have the seat bracket trims in your truck Tim? If so, do they match the seat bracket trim from my '87 seat?

[87MJTIM]

Hope this comes through 

[Airborne Janitor]

On 10/6/2019 at 5:58 PM, eaglescout526 said:

Well here is the final results. I like it. It’s been a battle just to find the right color but I don’t like how dark the SEM graphite is, felt like that color fit better with the 97-01 interior, so I went with what I did like and thought it fit best. 

 

I can see that it is a little lighter but honestly I like it and it’s been a month of color searching to where I didn’t want to go fork over a fortune to have a color match(probably should have for how much I spent). I feel the AZ sun and heat didn’t contribute to keeping the interior color in the best of shape. 

For now this color will hang around. 

 

I tried the Rustoleum Dark Gray and I liked the color, but didnt care for the gloss. I am planning on painting all my plastic trim one color so I don't want a super glossy finish. Did you try either of these SEM paints? Closest I could find to a match for the mopar dark charcoal.

 

 

[eaglescout526]

2 minutes ago, Airborne Janitor said:

 

I tried the Rustoleum Dark Gray and I liked the color, but didnt care for the gloss. I am planning on painting all my plastic trim one color so I don't want a super glossy finish. Did you try either of these SEM paints? Closest I could find to a match for the mopar dark charcoal.

 

 

 

 

Me personally, I thought the Thomas bus was too dark and the Medium slate didn't quite line up

[ghetdjc320]

The Rustoleum Granite color is a very close match to the original light gray color

[Airborne Janitor]

So I'm still trying to narrow down the oem dark charcoal/gray. Because I'm a sadist I'm going through the list of SEM grays. 

 

From left to right (bottom to top):

OEM

Rustoleum dark gray

SEM medium slate gray

SEM thomas bus gray

SEM presidio

SEM graphite

 

 

Another angle since grays can change drastically depending on the light

 

 

I'm still not satisfied with a match for the OEM dark charcoal. But since I'm running 97 XJ doors/panels I'm going to use the SEM graphite to repaint my MJ interior trim (instead of the SEM medium gray). 

 

[eaglescout526]

Same dilemma I had before settling with the Rustoleum charcoal color for the darker portion of the grey interior. 

[Airborne Janitor]

2 minutes ago, eaglescout526 said:

Same dilemma I had before settling with the Rustoleum charcoal color for the darker portion of the grey interior. 

 

I know I'm following in your footsteps a little bit. The SEM color chart and cap colors are useless so I started to just buy and try. Anyone who wants a can of any of the SEM grays I used (beside the graphite) I'd be happy to sell it to you at a 50% discount. 😀😀😀

[eaglescout526]

Just now, Airborne Janitor said:

 

I know I'm following in your footsteps a little bit. The SEM color chart and cap colors are useless so I started to just buy and try. Anyone who wants a can of any of the SEM grays I used (beside the graphite) I'd be happy to sell it to you at a 50% discount. 😀😀😀

Lol not a single one was suitable and I can not find a Chrysler color chart with part numbers to save my life. I found the charcoal color number once and then I lost it. 

But I do agree with you there the caps and chart are deceiving but yet all the other colors match perfectly.

[Pete M]

as per requested, I have cleaned up the posts to better align with the purpose of this particular thread.  all comments are merely hidden.  If anyone would like to start a new thread about other painting alternatives, I greatly encourage it.   

[Minuit]

We're approaching critical mass for another "what Minuit knows" writeup here, I think. My SEM Camel test panel is a near perfect match for the vinyl.

 

 

I've ordered some '84, '85, and '86 brochures to hopefully get a lock on the interior colors that were offered in the wild west AMC years.

 

EDIT FROM THE FUTURE: 1987 Tan, the color on the right, is its own color that is significantly lighter than 1986 Honey, the color on the left. "Honey", the darker shade in this picture, was available up to 1986. This color was replaced in 1987 with "Tan" and again in 1989 with "Sand" which changed to "Dark Sand" at some point thereafter. While the fabric on the "1987 Tan" seat is heavily faded, the vinyl is virtually identical to a NOS seat cover that has been in the package since day one. Knowing this, I recommend SEM 15323 Palomino to replicate 1987 Tan, and SEM  15173 Camel to replicate 1986 Honey. Another poster in this thread has mentioned SEM 15123 Santa Fe as being a good match for the Sand color - I haven't sprayed a test panel myself but I believe their judgment. At this point, I do not know a good color match for the early "Almond" color offered on 1984 and possibly 1985 XJs. It looks quite close to the later Sand color, but I don't have any Sand color parts on hand right now to compare.

[cbrant]

On 9/12/2019 at 9:52 PM, eaglescout526 said:

I am only wanting to create this post for future visitors or restorations.

 

If anyone has used the SEM interior paint to refresh/restore/make new, should post the color that comes close or is exact match to all years of the MJ interior factory colors.(I'll edit the post as more info comes along)

 

I just found out that SEM's medium grey is dead on for the lighter charcoal grey colors. I will be testing which colors will best restore the dark charcoal dash panels and center console.

 

Colors offered(According to what the catalogue shows me. If I'm missing one please tell me.):

1986: Black, Medium Blue, Cordovan, Garnet, Honey and Tan.

1987: Black, Medium Blue, Cordovan and Tan.

1988: Charcoal, Cordovan, Navy and Tan.

1989: Same as '88 except Tan is now Sand.

1990: Charcoal, Cordovan and Sand.

1991-92: Charcoal, Cordovan and Dark Sand

 

SEM:

Black - 

Medium Blue - Matte Nantucket blue rustoleum . I am sure there is a suitable SEM.

Garnet - 

Honey - SEM Camel

Tan - 

Charcoal(2 colors light and dark) - Medium Grey(SEM) and Dark Grey(rustollium)

Cordovan - Burgundy

Navy - 

Sand - SEM Santa Fe

Dark Sand - 

SEM 15393 for the light charcoal? They use "Medium" a lot in their names. 

[eaglescout526]

2 minutes ago, cbrant said:

SEM 15393 for the light charcoal? They use "Medium" a lot in their names. 

 

Yes. It is a perfect match.

[cbrant]

17 minutes ago, eaglescout526 said:

 

Yes. It is a perfect match.

Thank you! Much appreciated.

[Drahcir495]

I have an 89 with the blue interior. I guess it has the navy interior from the list. I used the SEM 15043 Shadow Blue. Great color match. 

[matt L]

Sounds like you guys have this pretty well figured out, but it seems like there is still not a homerun solution for the dark charcoal.  Attached is the Chrysler Interior colors for 1990 that I got for my mj.  My local paint supply shop mixes the sem on the spot and can put it in aerosol cans, I imagine other paint supply stores around the country could do the same thing.    Seems to be spot on.  May be a better option than trying to find a premixed color to match.