o-hi-o

My original armrest lid had a bump in the middle (like a pimple) and was that generic pleather material, so I thought, “I still have some scraps from the door rehab project. I might as well make this look a little nicer.” As usual for my interior work, I’m happy enough with the job. It ain’t as good as some can do, but it looks good for me. Also as usual, this isn’t a step by step diy, just a description of steps with some photos for good measure. So here we go:



I unscrewed the old armrest lid from the console and separated the bottom half from the top. Basicly unscrew every screw connected to the armrest lid. You should end up with two pieces, which I turned into 3 when I peeled the pleather cover off the top. Here I learned the reason for the bump: PO broke the lid and decided that cramming as much spray foam in there as possible would fix it.




I got out a wire brush and cleaned all the spray foam, broken bits, and pleather foam off of both pieces. Now I have a big rectangle hole in the lid. Since I’m recovering with fabric, I need to fill this hole in an even, sturdy manner. Enter the blue coroplast.





I cut a piece for a tight fit in the hole and cut a larger piece to overlay the entire armrest for a uniform top (notice the bumps and angles on the black plastic). I also took a trusty generic leatherman and sawed off some of the higher bumps before spreading some pipe cement on both pieces and fuzing them together. The books encourage proper sandwich action.




Once the glue dries, take some scissors and trim the excess coroplast off. I opted to do my final trimming with a razor blade, but found scissors were easier than the blade for the roughing in. This is the first of two arts and crafts portions of this project. Take your time to trim nice even edges. I opted to bevel my coroplast a little so it would blend in with the original top better. Also, don’t forget to radius the corners.

o-hi-o

Next step, a little padding for the top. This is the same quilt batting I used on the door panels. I didn’t leave any overhang on this piece since I learned on my doors that the compression from pulling the fabric tight will create all the overhang I would want. A little spray adhesive helps hold the padding square on the armrest. I don’t expect the spray adhesive to be a strong bond, but it helps everything stay in place. There isn’t a lot of stress on any of this stuff, so it doesn’t take much to hold it together.




I left a lot of overhang on the fabric to try an insure against the edges peeling out from in between the two plastic pieces. Screwing them back together will help hold the fabric in place, and the spray adhesive just helps “encourage” all the parts to stay aligned. I pulled the long sides tight first and tried to fit the fabric into some of the nooks and crannies of the underside of the black piece to further ensure some sticky friction to hold it in place.



I did a little relief cutting, but really it was just a matter of trimming the excess from each corner as I folded it over itself. Remember to that some screws have to go through this fabric to hold the two pieces together, so try and only have one layer of fabric over each bolt hole. I actually folded everything over, screwed it together, let it sit for a while so the glue would dry, then took the pieces back apart to trim some excess fabric. I also trimmed the fabric all the way out from around the clasp mounting points. The first time I screwed it together I realized it was pushing the clasp part too far away from the top piece.

Now comes the second arts and crafts step. Get your “tacky glue” in the gold bottle and squirt a little into each screw hole (since the first assembly punched holes through the fabric at each bolt). Some of my screws were stripped (be gentle, you are screwing into soft plastic) so this will help fill the gaps and reset each screw for a tight fit. You could maybe use elmers or thread locker, but I liked the arts and crafts angle of “tacky glue”. Assemble the whole lid, hinges and all, and let the “tacky glue” dry.

o-hi-o

Once it is all dry, take it out to the car and screw the hinges into the console. Your lid should be good as...nay...better than new. I found that it helps to slide the passenger seat all the way forward and tilt the back all the way forward so it doesn’t get in the way of your work. I left off the original metal bracket that limits the range of the lid opening up because the screw hole on the lid was missing. I’m going to pretend that I left it off for weight savings though. You can tell from the side shot that the top and bottom plastic pieces don't actually line up to make a uniform seam around the edge. If you look from the right angle, you can actually see inbetween the upper and lower part of the armrest lid. If you don't like that, you may want to avoid doing this to your armrest, or better yet, show us a DIY for how to fix that.





I'm just going to pretend that it eludes to the elegant but strong tension of such a high performance driving machine. Like the flying buttresses on the Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano...or something like that.

I hope this was useful for you all. Have fun with your cars.

p.s. I hate raking leaves!

cpnneeda

iTrader: (1)

Cool write-up. +1 on the leaves. Lucky me, I have pine straw to deal with.

o-hi-o

Thanks.

Those leaf bags are actually just from my front yard and part of my back yard. I finally gave up and just mulched the rest with the mower. I like working on cars. I hate working on yards.