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DIY Recovered leather door panels
My main project this winter was to recover the Roadster's seats and door panels with Nappa leather. That, and do the console and door panel aluminum trim. Console was done last month. Pics of seats coming soon.
Here's the pic gallery for the door panels. Bear with me while I post several groupings of 5 shots. I'll also include a small bit of narrative, but keep in mind the picture journal is dropping out dozens of other steps. All in all, each panel, from removal, recovery, to reassembly.. took around 10 hours each. Maybe more. It was not an easy DIY, but it was very rewarding. The panels came out perfectly stock. I'm very pleased.
Starting out with the finished product pics...
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damn nice color combo, now i want
what color is the car??
| | Reply » DIY Recovered leather door panels |
Pic1: Pull everything off the panels. Door handle, two leather panels (one for the airbag), upper plastic trim.
Pic2: Leather panelettes are attached via heat-stalked melted mushroom head vinyl posts. The head are milled off and sanded flat using a dremmel tool. There is built in play in the door panel's post holes. I kept the vinyl posts in their oval shapes, because this provided a precise realignment method for assembly later on. There is a good deal of careful clean-of prep work done to the door panel and the posts.
My idea was to remount the leather panels with body panel screws (since the original factory heat stalking "ate up" the vinyl posts. One use only). The posts are hollow. I needed to use screws that were coarse threaded, and just the precise diameter needed. Too small and they wouldn't bite. Too large and they would split the posts.
I should mention at this point, that these panelettes cannot be ordered as a separate part from BMW. If the plan I had set forth did not work out, I had a back up plan of using a hot glue gun to attach the panels. The problem is, according to the reupholstery people this is not a long term attachment method. They would eventually pop loose. Other, more permanent methods, were not an option. I may need to replace the leather again some day. Servicability was key in my plan. If the plan didn't work, it would mean having to replace the ENTIRE door panel... $1,400 each. Gulp.
Pic3: The old leather was pulled off, and the Dream Red Nappa leather was fitted and glued on. There is a single french stitch seam in the forward panel.
Pic4 & 5: Cut off the excess leather at the top edge. Cut out the handle holes.
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Pic1 through Pic4: The corners and edges of each panel have to be fine tuned. It's critical that they are glued down very firmly and smashed down hard. The upper folds in particular (where the aluminum cap goes over them) must be dead straight and "tucked" just right for alignment purposes.
Pic5: Pressing down the edges. There is a trough / groove in the door panel that receives this "bead" in the leather panels. Nappa leather is fairly thick.
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Pic1: Sand off the high spots with the dremmel tool. Again, to minimize the profile of the leather so that the panel lays very tight into the door panel groove.
Pic3: This seam is critical. If even the tiniest gap is present, you would be able to see the black vinyl of the door panel through the seam on a sunny day. It's also a very thick seam at the top. It's ground down thinner, but not so much as to go through the fold of leather.
Pic4: Double check fit.
Pic5: I spray painted a red strip behind where the seam happens, so that if I was unable to close the gap, at least red would show through. The gloss was a mistake.. but try finding matte flat red spray paint (grins). It turns out later during assembly that the seam was very tight, so the paint was not necessary.
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Ohhh , When you got the alum trim door pieces where they one metal and one platic left/right
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DIY Recovered leather door panels