Wednesday, September 6, 2017

Interior Modernization Project, Part 17. Other Completed Interior Parts (Except the Dashboard)

So here are the other photos that Cesar sent me to show me how he used up one of the Cardinal leather hides, the other being used basically for the main dashboard piece.

In my last post, I showed you all photos concerning the center console. A very nice piece of work I think, with tasteful application of Alcantara inside the console.

You may recall however that the Alcantara was originally for the gauge surround and the glove box interior. So, here are those photos.

First, the gauge surround:
Can't really tell from the lighting but...
Here you can. Alcantara, YUM!
Nice. Can't wait to caress it as I drive...
And here is the glovebox. You may remember a bunch of paper templates:


Which gets transformed into THIS:

This treatment alone makes the car look $20,000 more expensive. And yes, I thought about getting the glovebox door damped hinges, so it would open up slowly and majestically like in my Lexus... a future project?

Wow that is gorgeous!
Cesar even fixed the rough hole I had drilled into the rear of the glovebox and made it look OEM. I drilled the hole in order to pass a few wiring harnesses through - namely the boost controller and the ETC card reader (which I relocated).
Wait, what's this? A circle has got to be one of the most difficult to cover.
Close up. 

Finally, as I mentioned earlier, there were several other pieces that Cesar had covered in leather.

The large piece is the panel right above the driver's knees. And the small piece is the cover for the fuse box.
For comparison:
This is what I had sent Cesar.
A close up shot of the left bottom corner.
This is a switch blank. On the Series 3 this is where the rear fog light switch is situated.
A close up of the right bottom area. Check out that stitching!!
A view of the section where the fuses would be.  Love how Cesar managed to smoothly wrap the detents.
Another view of the stitching. Drool....
Ok, here is an even better shot! Awesome right?
From the top looking down. Note how the top horizontal piece (right below where the steering column would be) is smoothly stitched to the main piece - that is only straight line!
This is the fuse box cover. Note how the leather extends into the hand hold. That is going to feel nice!
How it looks attached to the main panel.
Another view.

And of course we can't forgot the glovebox door, as I had shown the work being done it earlier:

All leather. Actually I was tempted to go Alcantara as well.

Looks OEM.

Close up. You can see the pores in the leather!!
Finally, and without me asking for it, Cesar had gone ahead and used the leather to make a boot for the parking brake lever. 


You can see the snaps and the red stitching.

Unfortunately, I don't like snaps. It doesn't look OEM...
Installed, looks pretty good but...

Was a tough call but I decided I didn't like the single red stitching to go all the way up this boot.
I know, some people are incredulous that I rejected this last piece. However, I have seen this done before in other 3rd party parking/shift boots and never really liked the way it looked. For some reason, it looked cheap. So, I decided we would stick with black stitching, just like OEM.  In fact, Cesar was gracious enough to say this was a "rough mockup" and pretended it was not a hassle for him. What a true gentleman!!

In any case, with these smaller pieces done, it was now time to take the dashboard...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

oh my god that is beautiful.
more updates please!

how much is this bloody costing you?!?!

fuzzy said...

Hey Aki,

Been following you for a while. Gotta say this looks amazing.
Also wanted to just reassure you that the snaps on the handbrake gaiter are OEM.

Regards,

Aki said...

Anon and Fuzzy,

Thanks!

Fuzzy, thanks also on the handbrake gaiter snaps thing. I guess I just forgot...