New Leather in Steering Wheel (3 Viewers)

[wchain]

I am going to try Craft Customs in Dallas to have my wheel redone.....IIRC they charge around 125 bucks.

 

[DARKNESS]

Yeah, I left mine to the pros. Got one from Metric TLC awhile back. Looks great. I feel like I could probably do this, but looking at any slight imperfections I caused every day would drive me nuts.

 

[enriquelaija]

Another update on the progress of this:

I went and fixed the corners of the spokes first to make sure that the corners does not have any wrinkles (20 minutes), unfortunately I just find out that the spokes were not completely aligned, as you can see on the left side of the wheel, I am going to remove it and cut again te template with another piece of leather, I hope to find a darker color, this one is too light. I have to add an additional stitch on the upper side just to make it safe to drive it a little bit just to feel the new leather.

 

[IdahoDoug]

Fixed it for ya:

Yeah, I left mine to the pros. Got one from Metric TLC awhile back. Looks great. I feel like I would probably completely screw this up and be forced to look at every slight imperfection I caused every day while I drive, and that would drive me nuts.

 

[DARKNESS]

Ha, that too

 

[enriquelaija]

Fixed it for ya:

Yeah, I left mine to the pros. Got one from Metric TLC awhile back. Looks great. I feel like I would probably completely screw this up and be forced to look at every slight imperfection I caused every day while I drive, and that would drive me nuts.

@IdahoDoug I could have done that as well, but I am not in a hurry, I will patiently work my way out of here and gaining experience to share with the rest of the group, also I am too bad to handle stress and I have found out that when my hands are busy working, my mind is at rest. my final goal is to be able to have the right template dimensions to share with everybody and let them know in reality how difficult is to do it by ourselves.

 

[enriquelaija]

I have finally completed the steering wheel, the final color did not like it a lot, but the new leather feels good!, I was able to do the "V" stitches as I saw it in Youtube, at some point the leather was ripped when pulling the thread, but if I do not point i tout, you would not notice it, also I had some small defects at the end of the spokes, but not so critical.

The stitches were pulled back so you can almost do not see them while driving, so the small defects are almost unnoticeable, at the end you got the feeling of the leather and the stitches are not the main subject once it is installed.

Anyway, the take away of this experience is that I will not find the exact color of the leather because the oem leather is painted like in a chocolate color, and I do not feel confortable trying to match up the exact color, what I would like to do is to look for a darker leather color and change it in the future, but knowing myself I do not think that that is going to happen pretty soon if ever happens.

Regarding the template is kind of difficult to get an exact match, so if you area attempting to do this, my recommendation would be to get a piece of leather of 45" long by 7.5" width; 7.5" are needed for the spokes and for the wheel is 3.5". So once you get your ( 45"x 7.5" ) piece of leather, go and measure your wheel and mark where the pokes are so you can remove the excess of leather; keep on mind the old saying: "measure twice cut one", or something like that, in Spanish is "mide dos veces y corta solo una vez"



Please feel free to ask me any questions about this

 

[enriquelaija]

 

[enriquelaija]

 

[JLH911]

Thank you for the advice, do you have a copy of the template? Looks like mine is a little off, and I am planning on changing the color of the leather as well, something closer to the oem color. The one that is showing in the pictures is too clear, it was some left over from a leather store here in Tijuana and only cost me $3.50 dollars, well, I have spent $10.00 dollars including needle and thread.

I am going to go back to see if I find another darker piece and if you have template I will cut it to te exact same dimensions, my template was taken from the leather removed from my steering wheel, but with the time and the curve of the wheel it was harder to get the exact template.

In case somebody is interested, there is a shop here in Tijuana that is charging $100 dollars for the new leather and already installed, they manufacture leather products like jackets, bags, etc.

It is on revolution street and 3rd street. "TALABARTERIA ATOYAC"
Google Maps

View attachment 1415943

That is expensive by TJ standards.