So I've decided to wrap the majority of the interior in leather. I'll be buying the leather piece by piece, pre-stitched. I've done a few bits of wrapping before, however not with glue and leather.
So heres what the car looked like before any modifcations
I decided I'd start with the centre console, as I'm going a few modifications as I go.
Here's the leather I bought, checked against the centre console for fit.
Seemed a pretty decent fit, so I started working on the console. I have never really liked the rectangular gear lever cut out, so I bought a round polished aluminium trim ring from a Cobra that i wanted to make work with the console.
Sitting on a standard leather mx5 gear gaiter;
The ring sits just right to clear the gear stick, so it was time to make it fit! No material actually needed to be removed from the console, rather i needed to add material to support the ring the whole way round. I'm lucky enough to have a CNC at my disposal at work, so i machined two layers of DiBond to fill the void, with the correct diameter hole cut to perfectly accept the trim ring.
I countersunk some pop rivets, riveted it together, and filled over ready for leather.
And the underside:
The next step was to start wrapping the leather.
i placed the leather where i wanted it, then started from the middle.
I used a liquid contact adhesive for the best adhesion I could get, and worked progressively along in small sections.
Once the piece was finished I placed the cobra ring on to see what it looked like, and was very pleased with the results!
I left it to dry for a few hours, then trimmed the leather and fixed the trim ring and gaiter into position using some m4 machine screws.
That was me done for the day! Pretty happy with it so far!