Worn Leather Steering Wheel Options

kernowsvenski said:

Nice to be doing some of the frilly bits rather than being up to your armpits in diff pinions and valve seats I should imagine.

Click to expand...

It made a nice change from doing mechanical stuff.

A semi successful sewing session has resulted in the cover being fitted to the wheel ready for trimming. I've made things a little more difficult for myself though as the black sections are synthetic and don't have the same give as the leather. As a result I may not be able to get as good a finish as I want around the spokes, but I will carry on with this effort, treating it as a dry run. A bit of warmth may shrink the black and save any unsightly creases. All in all things look very promising though. I shall get the excess material trimmed off and take it off again so that the edges can be perforated with a machine to give nice evenly spaced holes ready for hand stitching.

kernowsvenski said:

A semi successful sewing session has resulted in the cover being fitted to the wheel ready for trimming. I've made things a little more difficult for myself though as the black sections are synthetic and don't have the same give as the leather. As a result I may not be able to get as good a finish as I want around the spokes, but I will carry on with this effort, treating it as a dry run. A bit of warmth may shrink the black and save any unsightly creases. All in all things look very promising though. I shall get the excess material trimmed off and take it off again so that the edges can be perforated with a machine to give nice evenly spaced holes ready for hand stitching.

View attachment 230982 View attachment 230983 View attachment 230984 View attachment 230985 View attachment 230986 View attachment 230987

Click to expand...

That's looking really good.

Bit of old skool craft going into the car. Hope it turns out good.

I see a cottage industry opportunity!!!
Can you stitch seat covers too??

andyfreelandy said:

I see a cottage industry opportunity!!!
Can you stitch seat covers too??

Click to expand...

We'll see how it goes, but if I'm properly successful I'd definitely consider doing other wheels occasionally for the odd LZ members as I'm quite enjoying the process. I do need to do a small repair on my drivers seat too so I'll be having a go at that after this. I'll report back.

kernowsvenski said:

We'll see how it goes, but if I'm properly successful I'd definitely consider doing other wheels occasionally for the odd LZ members as I'm quite enjoying the process.

Click to expand...

I want a leather wheel for my FL2 SE, which strangely came with a synthetic wheel.
It seems that only the HSE FL2 gets a leather steering wheel.
So if your doing leather wheel upgrades, then I'd like one in black, maybe with blue stitching to match my new gear lever gaiter.

As I have said previously on this forum, if an affordable decent seat cover replacement to fit straight to the seat was available I think they'd be a best seller.

Happy to provide seat patterns and seat frames.

Excellent work! Looking like one of the production areas at Bentley.

I agree on the need for a decent seat replacement. They all seem to start giving on the RHS of the seat cushion, and look tatty.

andyfreelandy said:

As I have said previously on this forum, if an affordable decent seat cover replacement to fit straight to the seat was available I think they'd be a best seller.

Happy to provide seat patterns and seat frames.

Click to expand...

I think an industrial sewing maching would certainly be required for leather or faux leather covers but cloth might be doable at home

I’ve got genuine Land Rover on mine they fit the seats well and keep out anything you chuck at them take them off now and again give them a wash and put them back on they’re really good

Tonight I began stitching the cover onto the wheel and I've run into three problems. 1) the faux leather is simply not pliable enough and it won't be possible to get the creases out. 2) We stitched the different pannels together with a straight seam. This does not work as when the cover stretches over the wheel, the outside radius is obviously greater than the inside, and it means that the leather on the main seem bunches up a little as i work around the inside joint. 3) I can't get the seam to join close enough having used the original pannel width for the new pannels.

As a result of the above, I'll be cutting slightly over-wide pannels at the weekend, stiching them together with a slight curve so that the cover forms a natural radius on its own before it is stretched over the wheel, and all pannels will be leather. I think those things combined will see a great result.

So close, but not quite there. The fit isn't quite right around the outsides of the alpaca spokes unfortunately and whilst one black section is perfect, the other is not, so it'll probably be another go I think. I also didn't glue the alpaca spoke sections as I needed to manipulate the leather too much in trying to get the seems to close up. Not bad for the first proper go though...

kernowsvenski said:

So close, but not quite there. The fit isn't quite right around the outsides of the alpaca spokes unfortunately and whilst one black section is perfect, the other is not, so it'll probably be another go I think. I also didn't glue the alpaca spoke sections as I needed to manipulate the leather too much in trying to get the seems to close up. Not bad for the first proper go though...
View attachment 231470

Click to expand...

It looks bloody good to me.

If you put it all back together on the car, would probably look even better.

That is looking bloody good. As for taking up the slack on the right hand black section, have you considered shrinking the leather? Soaking leather in water, then allowing it dry out causes it to shrink, it certainly did wonders with leather gloves we used to get at a previous job of mine.

Very very good. I think that shrinking and gluing the leather improves the already good resoult.

kernowsvenski said:

So close, but not quite there. The fit isn't quite right around the outsides of the alpaca spokes unfortunately and whilst one black section is perfect, the other is not, so it'll probably be another go I think. I also didn't glue the alpaca spoke sections as I needed to manipulate the leather too much in trying to get the seems to close up. Not bad for the first proper go though...
View attachment 231470

Click to expand...

I'd be proper proud of that!

kernowsvenski said:

Not bad for the first proper go though..

Click to expand...

Looks bloody good to me.

One thing I miss with the FL1 steering wheel is how thick it is. My FL2 wheel feels thin in my hands, which I'm not so keen on.
I'm thinking that a nice leather trim over the polyurethane would thicken it up nicely.

FINISHED!

I persevered and did a little bit of reworking and this is the end result. It's not quite Bentley standards of upholstery, or even LR, but I'm actually rather pleased with it now.

Looks the dog's dooh dahs!!

Brilliant job, let the orders roll in!!!

kernowsvenski said:

FINISHED!

I persevered and did a little bit of reworking and this is the end result. It's not quite Bentley standards of upholstery, or even LR, but I'm actually rather pleased with it now.
View attachment 231569

Click to expand...

That looks really good.