2000 GMC Sierra Restomod: Starting the Interior Overhaul – Part 5

After rebuilding the engine and dialing in the exhaust, it was time to shift gears and focus on the part of the truck I see every time I drive it: the interior. And let me tell you — this 2000 GMC Sierra was rough inside when I got it. Torn seats, worn-out carpet, and panels that looked like they’d survived a demolition derby.

Previous Update: 2000 GMC Sierra Restomod: Exhaust System – Part 4
Next Update: 2000 GMC Sierra Restomod: Seats Upholstery: Materials – Part 6a

In Part 5 of this restomod build, I decided to take on the interior cleaning but not the actual overhaul yet. That will come later. I will tell you about my adventures of interior teardown and cleaning, as well as share my plans for giving this truck a bold, modern and clean makeover — black upholstery, red accents, and some classic hotrod-style stitching that’s going to bring this cabin back to life.

To start with, let’s get the interior cleaned up so I can drive it around in the mean time and not puke from the smell and gunk all over the place.

We’ll Start With The Seats

Here are some photos of the interior before the work began. I just went through all my before photos and apparently I didn’t take very many of the interior for some reason. Here is what I did find.

The driver’s seat above is after I swapped out the ripped one. I’ll have the photo of the ripped cushion down below.

This center console is also after I swapped out the lid with a new one. You should have seen it, it was horrendous. Not sure why I can’t find the photo of it.

And this is is the back of the truck interior. Also, sorry, no good photos of the before of it.

Fix The Ripped Drivers Seat

I wanted to make this truck not-so-trashy, so I decided to fix the drivers seat that had a huge hole in it. To fix it, I went to a local used auto parts yard and bought a bottom cushion of a passenger seat, because there are no drivers seats in good condition for this truck. They are all ripped. After messing with it for a while, I found out that the frame of the passenger seat is exactly the same as the drivers seat. The only difference was the seat belt opening near the back corner. I was able to retrofit it and get the cushion back on the seat.

This is what it ended up looking like. I would say pretty great! This is the best – cheap – solution for fixing a ripped seat on a 99-06 GMS Sierra or Chevy Silverado.

Carpet Cleaning

Before I really launched the complete interior redo, I just wanted to clean it up so I could drive it around and not be disgusted by it. So I removed the seats and tried to clean the carpet.

I vacuumed it up and tried to wash the carpet using s Meguiar’s Carpet cleaner. It’s a foam solution that I sprayed on the carpet and then worked it in with a brush. This carpet was so dirty, that I quickly found out that this was not going to be the solution.

This is about the time when I decided to pull the carpet out and do some serious cleaning on it. I removed the seats, again. Pulled off the kick panels and the rocker plastics. I also pulled off the plastic parts on the back of the cab.

Carefully, I pulled the carpet out and dragged it onto our driveway. This is what the floor looked like under the carpet.

I realized that this is one of those times where you open up a can of warms and it doesn’t stop. I had to clean this as well.

There was so much mud there. I first vacuumed it all up then washed it with rags. Then wiped it all down. When I was done, it was looking like new.

Now it was time to get back to the carpet. I used soapy water and a hand brush and deep cleaned the carpet as much as I could. Then I pressure washed it and washed out the soap and mud out of it. It took many many passes to get the water to start coming out clean. There was a lot of mud in that carpet.

Did I tell you this project takes on its own life. Of course, this wasn’t enough. While I had the carpet out and the floor all clean, I thought, what a great time to add some sound deadening material on the floor.

Adding Sound-Deadening Material On The Floor

I did a bunch of research and basically figured out that I can just buy some sound-deadening material on Amazon for cheap and it will do the same job as some expensive brand name product. This is the one I used: Siless Black 50 mil 52 sqft Sound Deadening Mat. It cost under $75 for 52 sq ft.

After I used up the box I ordered, I saw that I needed one more box. I was very generous with it, covering all the flat areas. In some areas I adde 2 layers and I ran out without covering all the areas I wanted to have 2 layers on. So I ordered another box, and when it came, I finished off those areas. I had about half a box left. I still need to apply it on the doors and rear quarters.

Time to put all the carpet back. But before I do that, I had to get the carpet padding back in there.

What’s Next

Now that it is all clean and I can enjoy driving around in the truck, it is time to decide what the next phase is going to be. My options are, paint and body, or interior.

Well, that decision was made for me by my mother, haha. She came to me one day and said, I want to buy you a gift, what do you need to help you move your projects forward that is being prevented by finances. After thinking about it, I realized that I was staring down an opportunity that I might now see again. I though, sewing machine. A commercial sewing machine is what I needed to do the interior on the truck. I could always do paint and body, it doesn’t require much money, but the interior will be imposible to redo without a commercial sewing machine.

The machine she bought me is the JUKI DDL-8700. I am so grateful for this! I can now do my own upholstery work. I just need to first watch about a million videos about upholstery. haha

The Interior Plan

When I made a decision that I was going to overhaul the interior, I knew that I wanted it to be black and red. After looking at a lot of ideas and photos of other seats on the Internet, I came up with some specific elements that I wanted to incorporate into the design. Things like:

• Black leather
• Red leather accents
• High quality fabric
• Diamond stitch
• Red french stitch at the seams

Those were my elements, but I wasn’t sure yet how to put them all together.

Read the next post to be shocked at how I came up with my interior mockup! Here is a sneak peak!

Previous Update: 2000 GMC Sierra Restomod: Exhaust System – Part 4
Next Update: 2000 GMC Sierra Restomod: Seats Upholstery: Materials – Part 6a