Finally got my leather seats ordered. Now just have to wait for delivery
11-27-2012, 01:13 PM
#1
Finally got my leather seats ordered. Now just have to wait for delivery
So i have a 2005 350z 6spd. I had been debating on wether or not to go with leather seats. My 3 year old likes orange and he saw a z with burnt orange leather so I figured, lets do it.
Except I didn't get burnt orange. I went with a custom kit. Black leather seats, perforated burnt orange inserts, and burnt orange double-stitching.
Below is a pic of what it should look like. Keep in mind I did not get the Z logo on the headrest, mine will be all black. I also got the matching shift boot in black with orange stitiching as well as arm rests. I passed on the ebrake for now but may add to it later.
Oh, and the exterior of my z is silverstone and I have the factory brembos (orange) which is why i decided on the inserts and stitching, otherwise I'd have gone a simpler route. Car just sits at home most of the time so I'm not too worried about wear. I will keep the seats nicely conditioned and clean and in showroom condition.
My next step on the interior will be either nismo floormats or wrapping my center console/waterfall in carbon fiber material because someone scratched it a bit and its annoying me.
I'll post pics of my actual car once the seats come in. Thanks for looking and if you have an opinion let me hear it. Later guys.
W
Updated w pics. 3rd photo is my kit. Just delivered
Except I didn't get burnt orange. I went with a custom kit. Black leather seats, perforated burnt orange inserts, and burnt orange double-stitching.
Below is a pic of what it should look like. Keep in mind I did not get the Z logo on the headrest, mine will be all black. I also got the matching shift boot in black with orange stitiching as well as arm rests. I passed on the ebrake for now but may add to it later.
Oh, and the exterior of my z is silverstone and I have the factory brembos (orange) which is why i decided on the inserts and stitching, otherwise I'd have gone a simpler route. Car just sits at home most of the time so I'm not too worried about wear. I will keep the seats nicely conditioned and clean and in showroom condition.
My next step on the interior will be either nismo floormats or wrapping my center console/waterfall in carbon fiber material because someone scratched it a bit and its annoying me.
I'll post pics of my actual car once the seats come in. Thanks for looking and if you have an opinion let me hear it. Later guys.
W
Updated w pics. 3rd photo is my kit. Just delivered
Last edited by ntwillie1; 12-18-2012 at 03:53 PM.
11-28-2012, 04:43 PM
#7
Black cloth right now. They r actually nice. I just wanted to change things up bit. I'm a little nervous about it to be honest. I'm hoping they look good cause I can't return them if I don't like them.
Last edited by ntwillie1; 11-28-2012 at 04:46 PM.
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11-28-2012, 06:03 PM
#10
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I did the Leatherette version. I got them from ebay. $220 shipped from England. Although the listing was based out of Michigan. Took about 4 hours for each seat. I took my time. Order hog rings and hog ring pliers online. a few wrinkles. Probably have to take the seats out and tighten up a few spots.
Changes the interior alot. Wife loves them and so do I. I still have to install the shift boot. Not bad for $220. I'm on a budget ...the car is ten years old and the $600 I saved by leatherette instead of leather went to buy a g37 vlsd diff with 3.7 gears. The leatherette and stitching is high quality and has a psuedo grain. I did the install in my dining room. LOL The car orginally had cloth seats. They where worn bad on the drivers side bolster. I have a base 2003 350Z. I bought the car as a fun second car to tinker with. Car has 33,000 miles. Installed the seats 3 weeks ago.
Changes the interior alot. Wife loves them and so do I. I still have to install the shift boot. Not bad for $220. I'm on a budget ...the car is ten years old and the $600 I saved by leatherette instead of leather went to buy a g37 vlsd diff with 3.7 gears. The leatherette and stitching is high quality and has a psuedo grain. I did the install in my dining room. LOL The car orginally had cloth seats. They where worn bad on the drivers side bolster. I have a base 2003 350Z. I bought the car as a fun second car to tinker with. Car has 33,000 miles. Installed the seats 3 weeks ago.
Last edited by 02s2000; 11-28-2012 at 06:13 PM.
11-29-2012, 04:34 PM
#12
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Subscribing... I have a redline z with cloth seats that have worn spots (holes) in the seat bolsters. I was considering the burnt orange and am interested in your insert solution.
Looking forward to seen your pics... and thanks for posting. --Spike
Looking forward to seen your pics... and thanks for posting. --Spike
12-16-2012, 06:44 PM
#13
Well, just wanted to provide a quick updated. I have recieved an email from UPS and the covers should be arriving this Thursday. Being that its near christmas I probably won't have time to start them til early new year. Once they arrive I'll take a few pics and post.
12-17-2012, 05:34 PM
#16
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Yeah I did mine from Leatherseats.com. Fit perfectly. I went with all burnt orange, but I like yours too.
Like another poster said, make sure you order hog rings, the hog ring pliers, and another set of pliers to take the old covers off. It took me 3 hours on the first seat, and 2 hours on the second. Its pretty easy, technically- but somewhat difficult from an elbow grease standpoint.
Like another poster said, make sure you order hog rings, the hog ring pliers, and another set of pliers to take the old covers off. It took me 3 hours on the first seat, and 2 hours on the second. Its pretty easy, technically- but somewhat difficult from an elbow grease standpoint.
Thanks for the reply and additional info.
12-17-2012, 06:23 PM
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I did the Leatherette version. I got them from ebay. $220 shipped from England. Although the listing was based out of Michigan. Took about 4 hours for each seat. I took my time. Order hog rings and hog ring pliers online. a few wrinkles. Probably have to take the seats out and tighten up a few spots.
Changes the interior alot. Wife loves them and so do I. I still have to install the shift boot. Not bad for $220. I'm on a budget ...the car is ten years old and the $600 I saved by leatherette instead of leather went to buy a g37 vlsd diff with 3.7 gears. The leatherette and stitching is high quality and has a psuedo grain. I did the install in my dining room. LOL The car orginally had cloth seats. They where worn bad on the drivers side bolster. I have a base 2003 350Z. I bought the car as a fun second car to tinker with. Car has 33,000 miles. Installed the seats 3 weeks ago.
Changes the interior alot. Wife loves them and so do I. I still have to install the shift boot. Not bad for $220. I'm on a budget ...the car is ten years old and the $600 I saved by leatherette instead of leather went to buy a g37 vlsd diff with 3.7 gears. The leatherette and stitching is high quality and has a psuedo grain. I did the install in my dining room. LOL The car orginally had cloth seats. They where worn bad on the drivers side bolster. I have a base 2003 350Z. I bought the car as a fun second car to tinker with. Car has 33,000 miles. Installed the seats 3 weeks ago.
12-18-2012, 07:54 PM
#19
Ok, so my leather seats from leatherseats.com arrived today. I don't have all the tools I need yet so my plan is to go out tomorrow morning after I drop the kids off at school to pick up some hog ring pliers and hog rings. That said, I did start with the head rests tonight. Here goes the beginning of my build.
1.) First off, the seats do not have any installation instructions. I did however find some 350z specific instructions on their website. The link is here:
http://leatherseats.com/installation.asp
and
http://www.leatherseats.com/350Z_installation_guide.asp
2.) Secondly, I f'd up already. Based on the instructions, there should have been some J hooks on the bottom of the head rests. Upon releasing them i would be able to then just peel the factory cloth off. Unfortunately this was not true. My cloth was absolutely glued all over that foam. So out came my trusty exacto blade and I proceeded to cut the cloth off panel by panel. That took me approximately 30 minutes as i went slow and careful. No matter how careful I was, pieces of foam still came off that were stuck to the cloth. This caused the head rest to lose a little of its form which bugged me.
3.) Luckily, to start off with I only removed the cloth off the passenger head rest to begin with. I say luckily because it was the wrong thing to do. Upon installing the new head rest leather cover, the fit was not to my liking. It was loose and not tight (insert jokes here, hahaha). I read that after the installation and the car sitting in the sun for a few weeks that the installation would tighten and smooth itself out. However it was just too loose for me to believe that.
4.) Next I moved on to the driver side. For the driver side I decided not to remove the factory cloth but instead try to fit the new leather cover over the cloth. Guess, what?, with an enormous amount of effort and hand strength it is possible. It took me about 20 minutes to get that b*tch on but I finally managed to do it. It fit like a glove and it looked factory. I couldn't be happier with that side. But the passenger side is still bugging me.
5.) As mentioned in step 3, luckily I had carefully removed the factory cloth from passenger side panel by panel. So i decided to put it back on with the cover already installed. About 30 minutes of pushing, pulling, tugging, and massaging and I had all the panels back on. It isn't as tight as the driver side but 10 times better than it was when I first started. You can actually look at pic3 and see that the driver side has more form to it than the passenger side. Maybe i'll pick up a spare headrest if I find someone selling it and I'll fix this. For now its ok.
6.) The infal step for me, was conditioning the leather. Since its brand new I didn't bother to clean it. Normally I would use Lexol PH leather cleaner followed by Lexol leather conditioner. This time I just used the conditioner.
So here are the pictures of the head rests so far. Overall I think they look good. If the rest of the kit ends up like this I'll be pretty happy. I know its not much progess but since I have no tools i had to start with this. Let me know what you guys think. Thanks.
1.) First off, the seats do not have any installation instructions. I did however find some 350z specific instructions on their website. The link is here:
http://leatherseats.com/installation.asp
and
http://www.leatherseats.com/350Z_installation_guide.asp
2.) Secondly, I f'd up already. Based on the instructions, there should have been some J hooks on the bottom of the head rests. Upon releasing them i would be able to then just peel the factory cloth off. Unfortunately this was not true. My cloth was absolutely glued all over that foam. So out came my trusty exacto blade and I proceeded to cut the cloth off panel by panel. That took me approximately 30 minutes as i went slow and careful. No matter how careful I was, pieces of foam still came off that were stuck to the cloth. This caused the head rest to lose a little of its form which bugged me.
3.) Luckily, to start off with I only removed the cloth off the passenger head rest to begin with. I say luckily because it was the wrong thing to do. Upon installing the new head rest leather cover, the fit was not to my liking. It was loose and not tight (insert jokes here, hahaha). I read that after the installation and the car sitting in the sun for a few weeks that the installation would tighten and smooth itself out. However it was just too loose for me to believe that.
4.) Next I moved on to the driver side. For the driver side I decided not to remove the factory cloth but instead try to fit the new leather cover over the cloth. Guess, what?, with an enormous amount of effort and hand strength it is possible. It took me about 20 minutes to get that b*tch on but I finally managed to do it. It fit like a glove and it looked factory. I couldn't be happier with that side. But the passenger side is still bugging me.
5.) As mentioned in step 3, luckily I had carefully removed the factory cloth from passenger side panel by panel. So i decided to put it back on with the cover already installed. About 30 minutes of pushing, pulling, tugging, and massaging and I had all the panels back on. It isn't as tight as the driver side but 10 times better than it was when I first started. You can actually look at pic3 and see that the driver side has more form to it than the passenger side. Maybe i'll pick up a spare headrest if I find someone selling it and I'll fix this. For now its ok.
6.) The infal step for me, was conditioning the leather. Since its brand new I didn't bother to clean it. Normally I would use Lexol PH leather cleaner followed by Lexol leather conditioner. This time I just used the conditioner.
So here are the pictures of the head rests so far. Overall I think they look good. If the rest of the kit ends up like this I'll be pretty happy. I know its not much progess but since I have no tools i had to start with this. Let me know what you guys think. Thanks.
Last edited by ntwillie1; 12-18-2012 at 08:08 PM.
12-19-2012, 07:51 PM
#20
Well, I went out to buy my tools and hog rings today. I was able to find the hog ring plier but no rings. So I couldn't work on the seats today. But I did work on the Armrest.
Here is what I used:
Arrow T50 Tape Gun - Home Depot $20
1/4" staples - Home Depot $2.50
Automotive Adhesive GLue - Pep Boys $15
Panel Poppers - Pep Boys $15
Spring Loaded Clamps - x3, Home Depot, .37 cents each.
1. I started by calling the guys at leatherseats.com first. They recommended not taking off the existing material from the existing armrest panels, but rather, stapling over it. My initial plan was to use glue but they recommended staples so i went out and bought the Arrow T50 staple gun at Home Depot. I also purchased 1/4" staples for it.
2. I did the passenger side first. It came out ok. I plan on taking a heat gun or blow dryer this weekend and try to get the leather to shrink a bit so it fits tighter. The armrests are a bit time consuming, so take your time and don't rush. I used the spring loaded clamps to help me hold the leather in place. The staples did a good job too and I used the adhesive glue on the corners where it was impossible to get it perfect.
3. I did the driver side next. I think this side came out a bit better. You'll see what I mean from the pics.
4. Massaged a bit of conditioner on the leather, then removed.
Thats all for today.
Here is what I used:
Arrow T50 Tape Gun - Home Depot $20
1/4" staples - Home Depot $2.50
Automotive Adhesive GLue - Pep Boys $15
Panel Poppers - Pep Boys $15
Spring Loaded Clamps - x3, Home Depot, .37 cents each.
1. I started by calling the guys at leatherseats.com first. They recommended not taking off the existing material from the existing armrest panels, but rather, stapling over it. My initial plan was to use glue but they recommended staples so i went out and bought the Arrow T50 staple gun at Home Depot. I also purchased 1/4" staples for it.
2. I did the passenger side first. It came out ok. I plan on taking a heat gun or blow dryer this weekend and try to get the leather to shrink a bit so it fits tighter. The armrests are a bit time consuming, so take your time and don't rush. I used the spring loaded clamps to help me hold the leather in place. The staples did a good job too and I used the adhesive glue on the corners where it was impossible to get it perfect.
3. I did the driver side next. I think this side came out a bit better. You'll see what I mean from the pics.
4. Massaged a bit of conditioner on the leather, then removed.
Thats all for today.
Last edited by ntwillie1; 12-19-2012 at 07:55 PM.