Chaps, where can I get the stick on textured black plastic that you often see on the B-pillars on cars. Paintwork isn't great on one side of my Uno and rather than spray it I thought I stick some of this on it.

What does everyone reckon?

you could use tinting film or carbon fibre effect film.
or a thicker vinyl from a sign company

Or you could find a higher spec. Uno and pinch the 'A' pillar plastic covers! These are a straight swap onto a Uno that doesn't have them, and are located in place by the door and windscreen rubber outer seals.

See, Fiat have already done the all work for you

Edit: Oops. Just re-read your post and see you meant the 'B' pillars, and not the 'A' pillars. Same applies though, unless you're talking about the OUTSIDE of the 'B' pillars

If so, I don't know. Turbo models had the outside of the 'B' pillar and the rear upright of the door frame covered in black plastic, but none of the others did.

By the way, when are we going to see pictures of your lovely mk1?!!!!!!

Good thinking with the tinting plastic. Was thinking of the matt textured plastic as you see on the Turbo models. I think I'll pop to the local car shop and halfords see what they've got, might just be easier and cheaper to get the spray cans out and just respray the B pillar, won't be great but better than it is.

1986Uno45S said:

By the way, when are we going to see pictures of your lovely mk1?!!!!!!

Click to expand...

Soon . I was giving it a full machine polish last night but ran out of time to finish it, will continue tonight and then maybe I'll post some pics up. It is looking pretty good now. The paint work is far from great, would say it has been a bit neglected over the years but to be expected of a car that is getting close to 20 years old.

I've been thinking about this same thing recently (black vinyl for the outside of the pillars).

Just today at work, I came across squares of matt textured vinyl stuck on the walls in the museum gallery that I was dismantling - covering up various holes! - so obviously we have had a source of this in the past (it was also used to mask around CRT screens, which are now obsolete: we use LCDs). No-one seems to know where the matt textured vinyl came from, but my investigations are continuing.

It is the same stuff used on newer cars like the Punto and Stilo. It is not totally practical because any wax residue (from polishing) is hard to remove, and like all vinyl it tends to shrink/crack/peel from the edges. But it should last at least five years.

In the meantime, you could use the easily-available smooth black vinyl which is probably more practical (it can even be polished!) This is what custard boy suggested - it is used for signwriting on vans etc. Sign-making shops sell this by the roll. It is probably 10-15 pounds in your money for a lifetime supply... that is a fraction of the price of anything that Halford's would sell

We have a vinyl cutter at work, which is a magic machine made by Roland. One of those excellent examples of computing technology at its finest - now about 15 years old and running off a Windows 3.1 system with Corel Draw. The cutting tip is a tiny stylus that looks like a sewing machine needle. The stepper motors are seriously powerful and make a wonderful sound. The hardware seems to be designed to last forever, none of this limited-lifetime high-consumable rubbish we have with printers these days

It must be worth its weight in gold over all those years, used for lettering and graphics on all the museum gallery walls. It is shortly to be replaced by a newer machine, but I expect it will be around for me to use for some time to come... It works with full-width rolls of vinyl (1m wide, I think?) and can produce a square metre of 72-point text (one inch high) in about 20 minutes. I'm considering using it to make the 'Turbo i.e.' lettering and sidestripes for the Mk1 Uno Turbo, but of course need to get the design into Corel Draw first.

-Alex

even better if the widows are tinted.works really well on the centos as it makes the glass into one big piece.
makes a big difference

won't one be able to get it from the agents?

curiously enough, fiat still use the exact same stuff on the nouva pandas b-pillars, the bodyshop that repaired the eleganza had to order it in its about £8.50+vat