Well I ordered these door tube leather wraps to cover up the scrathched up silver and liked them:



And I thought "that would look good on the scratched up downtubes as well, hmm..." So I headed out to the upholstery remnant shop, picked up some leather, cut it to fit, and spray adhesed them on. Here is the finished product:



I see from the pic that I need to wipe off the chalk line, but they stretched on nice and tight, not bad for $10.

 

Looks good. Any pics from a different angle?

 

Just this one:

 

Very cool!!

Nice job!

 

Not sure if I am crazy about it but to each his own....good job though!

 

Nice! Makes the expensive JCW leather wrapped bits seem ridiculous.

 

Not bad at ALL for $10.

Kudos

 

cool!

 

That came out really fantastic! Good job.

I always love it when someone does something really great for not a lot of dough!

 

Nicely done!

 

Very cool! I just picked up some leather so I could have a go doing something similar myself. How much did you have to stretch the leather to get it to conform to the shape of the downtube? Was it difficult to get it to fit properly?

Good job.

 

Nice job MINITOR.
The door tubes leather wraps that you have installed are a ready-made item purchased from some on-line shop or it's a custom made job?
My door tubes are also scrathched and I was thinking exactly the same arrangement.

 

great job.

 

Vasmal - custom, picked the leather scraps up at an upholstery shop.

XrayDeltaOne - it was a little tricky getting the fit just right. The stretching wasnt hard thought, that was the easy part. It was just getting it cut the exact right shape and then getting it aligned when it is covered in adhesive that is tricky.

I actually preferred my downtubes blue as they were painted before, so I may try to get my hands on some lapis blue-like leather, or some suede or faux sued and redo it when I get a chance.

 

Not too sure that I'm diggin' it, but thats just me. I might just not be feelin' it yet, but it looks ok. It just doesn't seem to match to me.

Any one aggree, or am I completley off?

(Otherwise, the MINITOR looks awesome!)

 

::very k00l
im in tha process of gettin' as much of my interior 'stitched' in 'DTM' look,(red thread/trim on tha seam) so far i've got my door pulls/handles done. down tubes r next!
-question fer ya MINITOR, how tight did everythin' fit around ur down tubes did u have a problem w/radio, aircon box, toggle switch box beign to tight on tha leather? how hard wuz it to remove down tubes?

 

Qwertmonkey - I would probably agree that it doesnt match too much just seeing the pics, but it does match the doortubes in real life, and both were pretty scratched up and ghetto looking so the leather is an improvement. I will probably be coloring both blue sometime soon.

Joker - The tubes are easy to remove on the early years (I have 03). You just pull up on the center dash piece and pop it half way off, take the 4 torx screws out, and the 2 phillips heads in the cupholders to loosen them (you may be able to skip this step, I dunno). Then you pull up on the tubes and out so they clear the dash. It only takes one minute or so once you have done it before.

It is not too tight anywhere except for where the tubes meet the bottom cupholder piece. Here you have to make the leather just a bit longer than where they join and then take a small screwdriver or something of that sort and tuck in the extra. Other than there, the extra thickness of the leather was no problem, though it did take a bit of time to figure out what shape to cut the leather so that it would clear everything right. After doing it though, I think that I could cut it less exact and it all would have cleared just fine (minus the above mentioned section). Good luck.

I am looking forward to doing it again with blue leather, or maybe I will just color the leather that is on there now as I liked them better blue but they scratched to easy.

 

I think these are the door pull covers the vasmal was asking about. If not them I'll be happy to ask about them

Wondering where you ordered these from? I've got some luggage handle wraps I'm using on mine but the cross member is starting to look fubar'd.

I like your downtube work also, but I'll be doing mine in a padded breathable material (headliner stuff?) so that my leg doesn't stick to it

 

I forget where I ordered them from actually, but it was one of the normal places - Moss or MINIMania probably, or maybe MyMINIparts. I only found one place that sold both of the pieces, not just the top piece or part of the longer tube. Sorry I am not more help on those, I have ordered so much that it has all become a blur.

 

I was curious to know where they came from too... so after your last post, MINITOR, I used those suggestions to poke around. Found them!

They're at MossMini.com.

 

Thanks for finding those! I think I'm going to go and order a set right now. That'll be one less thing I'll have to do for myself.. (Planning on a bit of a leather interior makover)

 

what is the name of the adhesive that you used?

 

what is the name of the adhesive that you used?