The holes that he drilled are in the recessed portion of the bezel. The other black dots are simply shapie marks space evenly. This made it easier for him to drill with even spacing.

 

Thanks

 

Another question, What are you doing at the heater bezels? that is a tight fit and I dont think that it will wrap around it right and still allow them to move...

Also how do I get the bezels out?

 

Its always nice to see when people do something to their interiors. The subject is very close to my heart.

I painted my center console plastics, we suspected that refitting the panels would be very difficult or impossible if covered with leather. In fact I had to do extensive grinding to the plastics after the dash was covered to make them fit.

GiJoe, do you think refitting could pose problems in your case? Your panels are different to mine.

 

4/9/07 Update
Few hours later after gluing

Few hours later after gluing

Minus all the fitment issues and other research we put into this yesterday to get all the cutting just right...
I am at about 8 hours of labor now.

I still have a little touch up work to do in the corners to get them just right.

I also have to keep reminding myself... this is the first time I have ever done this and its not going to look 100% perfect.

 

I always thought those dashes shoulda been leather covered in the first place, big difference!

 

I just took a look through your entire thread and all the pics. Simply put: AMAZING! That is some beautiful work! I love the C4's with leather!

I LOVE your doors, I am definately going to attempt that on mine. It should be a bit easier since its all flat and angular in the early C4's... at least I would hope so LOL.

Because our early C4's dash's are so "flat and boring" and "devoid of any intricate fitting and style", it SHOULD fit pretty nicely. We took at good look at it all and decided that the way it all fits together (all squared off angles, only 2 pieces even overlap anything) that it should fit just as it does now without any issues.

I can't wait to see how it all looks once its actually IN the car. I should have the center piece finished tomorrow after work and in the car shortly after. Next I will be pulling out the center console (around the shifter, etc) and doing that piece.


I have the vents all worked out. After we messed with it for a few hours and got nowhere, I showed my mother-in-law (who is a master at "arts and crafts" (for lack of a better word)) and she showed us the best way to do the vent holes. We did a mock up of it, and it fit perfectly without any issues. The vent turned from side to side without any rubbing issues.

To get the vents out, just pop the dash panel off, look behind it and notice that above and below each vent there is a plastic spring clip thing. If you look to the ouside of each vent, you will see a small hole with the clip poking through. Just put some pressure on the front of the vent (pushing backwards) and push the little clips in and the vent will pop right out.

Note 1: The vent has a post on top and bottom that fits into the clips. The post with the little peg sticking out the top goes on top.

Note 2: The clips have a raised piece on one side, these face the vent, the flat sides face the dash.

 

Lookin' Good so far

Cudo's for even starting such a project.

Gary

 

Great work! I have been thinking about getting my shifter console done like that at upholestry shop my freind owns

 

I reminds me of that upper dash , in that car that was in 007 casino royal.

Its a small clip , but i thought of you/

 

Thank you for starting this project

Thank you for sharing it with us, it looks great.

Thank you for serving our country

I think that it looks really cool and will add to the car. Keep the pics coming. Can't wait to see it in the car.

 

I sure hope you are right. I mostly had problems in refitting AC vents into their openings where leather was 2-4 fold + stiching.

You may only have 1 or 2 layers of material but remember that its on all sides so the vent position (and other holes too) will be atleast 4 x thickness of the material smaller.

PS. very nice stichwork by the way.

 

I want to see the installed pics

 

Never really thought about wraping the dash but it looks good.

 

I wish I had a pic of the mockup before I glued it all down. Around the vents there is no stitching, and there was room to move it.

I wish I could see a better pic of behind your vents, but from the ones I was looking at in your post, its a completely different design. Ours have each vent swiveling freely in separate sockets. Luckily, this is only for the 4 small vents in the center dash. The two side vents both have their own sockets that wouldn't be touched or need to be altered. The side vents would just be glued back into their own sockets from the back just as they are now. The vents in the center were the hardest part to come up with how to make it work IMO, but we finally got it down.

While I was thinking about it, I went ahead and snapped two of the vents back in. Both fit like a glove. It was tight snapping them back into place, and I had to use something to poke a couple of the clips back into their holes, but it fits fine without being "forced". The side to side movement of the vents is obviously a little tighter, but it still moves freely without messing anything up or being a "problem". Looks like it worked

I don't have time to snap a pic of the vents installed before work here, so I will get one this evening once I finish folding the sides down into place and doing a final trim. I should have it completed this evening.

... plus I want to polish the vents up some. They are still nasty dirty looking from the doner dash that they came out of.

Thanks for the stitching comment. I wish I had used better thread on the bottom than I did on the top. I switched 1/2 through after my mother-in-law found a better thread that would work. I did a majority of this while we were at the inlaws on Easter, so she had a lot of input to give on the best way to do things. I originally was double-stitching quilting thread into the bottom/sides. She came up with the idea to just use cross-stitch thread (forgot the term for it). It comes in strands of 6, so I just separated it into strands of 3 and did the top two openings with it and it came out 100% better IMO. The nice thing is I can go back and restitch the bottom later if I want to, but I don't think I am going to bother until I find out if everything looks great once installed or not. I may go ahead and convert the entire dash to real leather if it all turns out right, then I can restitch it with some thicker threads and colors. I came up with some really good ideas 1/2 into stitching it all up, but it was kind of too late to start a new style in the middle of the project.

The inside of my pinky is still cut a little from pulling the thread so much heh.

 

Just wash them with some soap and water in the kitchen sink.

 

I have almost finished my center console and the one with the shifter in it

Thank you for the idea and help. I have been looking for a while for something to liven it up a bit. And since my car has a blue interior(and exterior), I found a nice blue thread. I will put up some pic's in a day or 2 when I am done

Also, what are you doing around the screw holes? I am drilling 6 holes of equall distance around them and sweing it, so that if it starts to fray it cant go past that.

 

 

Looks 100% perfect to me

 

Very nice project...

I can understand your feeling about doing such.

Copla years ago I decided to "fix" the floppy ears on my visors so I hand formed the new cardboard and hand stitched the covers.

It really gives a feeling of satisfaction.