Finished product with the bottom plastic silver colored piece attached back on.
This shifter took a total of about two hours to finish. I kept taking breaks so I don't know for sure but that's about the right time. This was my first true reupholstery job; I took off the original leather, cut new leather, and stitched it back onto the shifter. The result? It's very soft but sturdy. I love it but some people hate my car period (that's a future article - I want to talk about purists).
I will say the stitching isn't very good. Yes, it was my first time doing this specifically, but I should have paid more attention to the lines. My stitch lines aren't very even - try to make sure they line up when you sew. I was using a curved needle to go from above the center piece and come out of the bottom of the larger piece of leather. I repeated this process until I was finished.
What I should have paid more attention to is the angle at which the string sits; you want them all to line up as best as possible. You can see mine getting better as I was going from left to right.
You're going to need:
- A black marker.
- Scissors good enough to cut your leather.
- A razor.
- A bent needle - bend your own. I've been using the same one for a long time.
- String. Because I had basic string which isn't very strong, I folded it over so it's twice as strong. Otherwise I would recommend trying to find stronger string. I've also used clear fishing line before but only in places you couldn't see. That stuff does not come off.
- Vinyl adhesive or some good glue.
Use the razor to cut the original string on the shifter. You need to separate the pieces of leather from the shifter. That is what you will use to make your new pieces.
Tip: they might be bent, meaning they won't lay flat immediately, so do this. Get the pieces wet, clean them (just with water - I guarantee dirt will come off), and then when they're wet, give it a little pull to both sides to flatten it and put something flat on top.
Next, set them on the bottom side of your new leather and trace around them with your marker. Cut right where the marker starts to get the same dimensions.
Now just test fit your pieces. Do they look okay? I cut about 1mm off of one side of the middle piece because it seemed bigger than the original leather and it worked out perfect.
Use vinyl adhesive (preferred) or some other glue to adhere the main piece to the shifter. Put the other piece on to make sure everything lines up and is also centered. Having the main piece glued onto your shifter will not only give it extra strength but it will be easier to stitch the two pieces together.
Bending a normal needle really helps to get under that main part. If you look at my project, the string goes into the smaller middle leather part and comes back up from under the main leather. Just repeat until it's done.
Pushing a sewing needle through leather is somewhat hard at times so keep some pliers nearby. Most stitches you can do by hand but sometimes the needle will have a hard time going through and that's when you grab the pliers to pull the needle through.
Let's talk about how you should use normal string for clothes to do this. Like I said, double it up. Get twice the length you want and bend it in half. Next, insert the two ends into the needle hole. Yes, both of them. Tie them together with maybe five simple knots - it will help hold it in the spot where you first start stitching.
Now, move the needle to the other side where the string is looped. Tie one knot about an inch from the end of the string. That's where you want your needle to be. Also, this way you don't have to cut anything to get the needle off.
This helps in a couple ways. First, it's stronger (doubled up). Second, when you run out of string, it's easy to add more. Think about it; you don't want four feet of string because each stitch will take longer having to manage all that length. A shifter like that, I would do in two parts preferrably.
So what do you do when you're at the end of your string? Honestly that knot holding the needle should be almost coming undone already but if not, that's what you need to do. Untie it and get your needle. Here's the beauty; you have a loop to attach the next length of string.
It's pretty self-explanatory but here it goes. Get your length of string. Make sure this time you will have enough length to finish the shifter. You need to loop one side of the string through the old one, pull it through enough to where the two ends of your new string line up, and use that end to tie onto your needle.
Why do you need to do this? Because it's the best way to hide the fact that you added extra string. That part where the string connects will end up somewhere under the leather. It's the best way I've found. It's ugly to just knot it which you can do if you choose to or if you make a mistake. If you position that right, it won't show either.
Re-upholstering a seat is the same process but how many times bigger is it than the shifter? Doing it by hand like me, it would take forever to do each seat. Nonetheless, if you can reupholster your shifter perfectly then you can reupholster anything, really. The basics are the same.
Dear readers; life came at me hard and so I haven't been able to write as much. I am sorry for the lack of content. I have been working on Lexi2 however so I have pictures and new information for future articles.
I mentioned something about purists earlier in the article and I am struggling to write this piece in a non-biased way. The problem with the car community I'm in is that people are too close minded. If you do something different with an LS400, you're going to get trolled. That's on the internet. In real life, at worst I've had people point out things that I should fix but if anything, people compliment the car and love it.
It's a sketchy subject but I want to explore the psychology of it. I've even tried to ask these people some questions and they weren't able to come up with anything valid.
Thank you so much for reading; come back soon! P.S. Tell me what article you would like to see. You can find me on Instagram as @rokask1 or you can email me at norgin@gmail.com. You can also post a comment here.
- Rokas K.
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