Froo-Froo fake wood trim restoration

I have a Briarwood and am trying to keep it looking as nice as possible.
I don't know why, it's not special. I guess I just like any car I own to look as nice as it possibly can. Don't get me wrong, it still sees it's share of mud and rocks (mainly rocks here in Colorado). But I also like to have a car that looks showroom fresh.
Which brings me to my problem. The little wood trim thingies that border the wood sticker are loosing their very thin vinyl coating. When I see a little bit starting to peeel up I use a dab of super glue to get it back down again.
I have replaced some of them but they still have the very thin vinyl that starts peeling up after a few months. On top of that, those trim pieces are discontinued and very difficult to find.
I know not many of you have Briarwoods, and the few that do probably aren't very interested in the condition of the trim. But, I was wondering if anybody has thought of a fix or a cure for this.

I thought of re-wrapping the peices in thicker aftermarket vinyl, but I can't find a good match and the process seems rather labor intensive with questionable results.

I thought painting them might work, but I am not sure it would look right.

I even thought of trying to replace them with real wood pieces. Aside from being very expensive, I don't think I can find someone to do it. I could probably take a crack at it, but there is a lot I don't know. The biggest question at this point would be how to attach them effectively.

Any thoughts?

nevermind

That wood grain trim is available. Try a store that sells supplies to auto body shops. Also, at one time, J. C. Whitney used to sell that stuff. It was probably a "universal" kit , rather than model specific.

What color is your jeep? What if you painted the trim pieces the same color? It wouldn't look bad then, as it would match the vehicle and still have the fake wood siding inbetween the trim.

If I'm not mistaken aren't the trim pieces actually a brighter color than the wood siding itself?



What happened there? That looks extremely bright compared to the other briarwood's with trim I've seen.

the wood grain part numbers for a 1991 Briarwood is as follows
4636 516 its description is " Woodgrain, 16 x 60; Modification required
I have a parts book and a briar wood and i am thinking of doing the same, what i dont know is if this is available.

The picture two posts above is what the trim looks like if you pull all the old vinyl off and let mother nature take her course. Several pieces of mine had peeled badly, so I just pulled them off, which looks better than plastic flapping in the wind while driving. There's a wagoneer xj at the local salvage yard that still has all its trim, and i thought about getting a few pieces to experiment with. I'll do a write-up on here when I get that done. Right now I'm considering painting them black to match the paint or dark brown to offset the wood, or maybe some type of faux finish - I've got till the winter to decide - that'll be paint job time.

I've attached two pics, the first of what the trim looks like with the vinyl pulled off and faded, the second is a naked piece next to one with (most of) the vinyl intact.

How is it attached? Double sided trim tape or what?

I'd just spray it...would be best if it could be removed easily, but if not, just mask away! That's the easiest and it would still look good. A black or dark brown would be very nice, as you said.....just depends which you want it to match! I'd personally rather have it offset the wood with a dark brown or something.

It's on there with those crappy plastic "never-use-em-again" clips - they come off fairly easily, but I'll have to get the clips to replace them before I put them back on. And yeah, dark brown is what I'm aimin for at this point.

Oh, that'd odd. So they drilled holes along the entire XJ for that wood trim?

I was totally sure it was held on by some sort of adhesive!

Nope, that would only make sense. There's 16 holes total on each side if I remember correctly.

Eek!

I know this sounds strange but didn't Chip Foose do some weird paint thing to make it look like he installed some real fake wood trim? I just do not remeber what epsode or how he did it.:roll:

I had a Briarwood years back,...but I took mine out of the wood crate.:wow: