leather wrapping interior

[LETZRIDE]

Since I got that damn modding disease, I'm trying to stay low budget for this year. So Ive decided to pre-occupy myself with beginning to leather the interior of the car on my spare time while it's stuck in the shop.

I wanted a nice Black throughout the car with a nice pattern, and I wanted it to have some give to the touch...kinda like the parents lexus interior.

SO, here's what Ive been working on...slowly.

So Far I got one rear panel kinda done...don't mind the sloppy edges of it, theyre not glued down yet, I'll have to tend to them tommorrow. I wanted the glue on top to dry and well, the hockey game was starting

[ssms5411]

Re: leather wrapping interior

Looks like it will come out good, whats the cost in doing it in leather?

[LETZRIDE]

Re: leather wrapping interior

well its vinyl with a leather pattern, so fake leather lol...I got like 3 square yards for under 50$...the white stuff I had lying around, I'll need to go find and buy more but that stuff I remember was pretty cheap to.

You should be able to do the entire car for well under $150 for everything

[ssms5411]

Re: leather wrapping interior

How hard is it to wrap stuff? Is the vinyl stickie on the back side so it sticks to the panel your covering?

[LETZRIDE]

Re: leather wrapping interior

no, that'd be nice...I know I'll likely have to re-wrap this piece again using good 3M glue, not the crappy elmers spray on stuff I was using...this was more of a test to see how hard it was, and what it was going to look like...

Doesnt seem hard at all with a little patients and a heat gun....that panel took roughly an hour or so to get all the little crinkles out. I made some mistakes, I should've cut the speaker hole out early, that would've allowed me to get a better pull on the vinyl to wrap it tighter to the curves. I had a bit of a hard time in the crevises with this piece, I ended up rectifying it by ironing it out with my hand.

[Brians00Blackbird]

Re: leather wrapping interior

I've been wanting to do this for a while now..except I'm going blue because I have the blue/black coverking neoprene seat covers, which I love btw..anyway your right about the price you could certainly deck out the interior and give it that leather look for under 200 easy. I also wana remove the interior panels and repaint them, I'm only "leathering" the door inserts, shifter, and E-brake.

[transamtom1]

Re: leather wrapping interior

That should look real good Mike:)

[LETZRIDE]

Re: leather wrapping interior

I hope so, I found a place in Milton to that does Hydo-dipping. So I want to send out all the vents and shifter part of the centre console (will be a 97 and up eventually) and have it carbon fibre'd...I admit Im not a huge fan of carbon fibre, but Ive seen this done on ls1tech and it looked phenominal.

I dont know about adding a cushion underneath the leather now. I did the driverside triangular mirror piece (on the door) in just vinyl, but it seems to scratch very easily. With somewhat of a cusion underneath it doest seem to have that same effect. Makes it much more durable. The problem is I dont know if adding a cusion like I did on the rear trunk piece makes the vinyl less suceptible to sticking.

I know I used ****ty Glue, so Im thinking the 3M will hold up. I had a few wrinkles come back last night, (mind you I also lifter the vinyl off the piece like 4 times when I was laying it because it didnt sit nicely). Hopefully I have some time tonight I can hit it with the heat gun and hopefully wrap the pieces around the corners permantly.



So Here's what I am thinking.

- Vinyl/leather wrap every sigle plastic component to the interior of the car.
- Add a cushion (at this time) under the vinyl to give it a real soft/giving feel
- Black Micro-suede all the speaker panel grills (no cushion)
- Black Micro-suede the headliner (my headliner has decided to begin drooping now)
- vinyl/leather the dome light trim on the roof.
- Hydro dip the vents/vent trim in carbon fibre
- Releather the door panels
- Micro suede the carpet area of the lower door panels (96 style)
- Use Black interior trim paint on the interior door handles (I think it would be damn hard to wrap these)


Things I am debating:

- Carbon Fibre Hydro-dipping the interior door handle trim (that part that connects to the handle, and has the window controls/would be window controls on the door)
- Putting these "Performance Division" badges on the interior rear most part of the door (picture the bottom left if you were to look at that leather/cloth part of your door, right before it connects to the arm rest. That panel between the arm rest and the window)



What do you think?/ Anyone have any suggestions?

I'd like to keep this clean and subtle. Give it sort of a classy look. I think that the cushions under the vinyl will help close the gaps that GM left in alot of our trim joints as well.

This completely violates my Nazi weight cutting regime...but I guess I could add a little weight for a little class...just pull the panels when I go racing.

[transamtom1]

Re: leather wrapping interior

I hope your not going to be carrying slicks/skinnies and your jack back there.

That stuff will get messed up in a hurry.

[LETZRIDE]

Re: leather wrapping interior

I usually fold the backseats down when that stuff goes in...but to be honest, I usually bolt that stuff on and drive down...much less hassle. The rear MT's are DOT, and I dont have skinnies....yet

[ssms5411]

Re: leather wrapping interior

I usually fold the backseats down when that stuff goes in...but to be honest, I usually bolt that stuff on and drive down...much less hassle. The rear MT's are DOT, and I dont have skinnies....yet

I have some Prostars if your looking for skinnies, I'm not using them. Bought them off of Pathogen back 2 years ago.

[LETZRIDE]

Re: leather wrapping interior

I have some Prostars if your looking for skinnies, I'm not using them. Bought them off of Pathogen back 2 years ago.

I just said I wanted to keep the cost down this year, and you had to go and dangle this infront of me lol.... Pm me what you're looking to get for them, along with details on em

I dunno though, Im mauling over ponying up for longtubes...I really, really want those 12's this year at all costs (even though I feel I could run em now)

[ssms5411]

Re: leather wrapping interior

Will do.

[LETZRIDE]

Re: leather wrapping interior

I decided I'd redo that panel as I messed it up and just wasn't happy with it. I also decided against going with a foam backing. The foam doesnt allow the leather to take the shape of the piece very nicely, plus, it actually already has a better texture with just the vinyl/leather alone.

Tips:

- You 100% need a heat gun for this, no question
- second set of hands will really help you out.
- start from the centre of the piece and work your way out. If you start from one end and work your way down, you're guaranteed to get wrinkles and bubbles.
- Leave yourself a ton of excess, probably 3-4 inches all the way around the piece. This wastes alot of vinyl, but its better than wasting the whole piece when you muck up (like I learned)
-Lastly I used supper 77 3M glue...that stuff is tacky as sh*t...I had to pull the vinyl up a few times after just touching it to the plastic and I was fighting with the damn thing hardcore.

so, here's the new picture of that first piece...



Before the passenger piece was done



After the passenger piece was done

[LETZRIDE]

Re: leather wrapping interior

I'll cut out the area for the grills, or rather the slots for the grill to fit in later.