The leather on my centre armrest was looking a bit tired and I have never used the (ugly) cupholder, so I thought I would kill two oiseaux with one stone and swap both the leather cover and the armrest itself.

Sourcing the non-cupholder armrest: this was relatively easy, as I could go for any leather colour - I only needed the foam structure. I bought a rather tatty one from a breaker via UK eBay for £20.

Sourcing the new leather cover: my 4.2-S special edition has black stitching on the ivory leather, which is a very difficult combination to find. I therefore had one specially made by Vic at TopsOnline.com in California. They didn't have the pattern for a non-cupholder armrest, so I sent them the oatmeal one off the donor armrest I'd bought - and which I had no use for - and Vic came back with an ivory/black model a few days later.

Cost was just $50 + $25 postage (to France). Vic even refunded the $25 postage in return for my sending out the old cover. Really excellent service there

The colour, grain and fit are a 100% match to the original leather, so well done, Vic He also stitched a thin layer of padding inside the top part of the cover, so it's softer on the elbow now.

Installation: fitting took about 1 hour. It's not difficult, but this was my first attempt at retrimming, so I was taking things steady as I really didn't want to damage the new leather.

All you need is a screwdriver, some good contact adhesive and a bit of patience. The leather cover needed a bit of trimming here and there to ensure the back plate could be screwed back down again, but take your time and it will be fine. I marked the position of the various screw holes with a blue pen before gluing down the leather and all the screws went back in again a treat.

A few photos showing the various stages:

1. new cover placed over donor armrest to check for fit prior to trimming
2. cover glued onto the donor armrest
3. backplate screwed down
4. new armrest in the car
5. comparison new and old

Next job: the worn side bolsters on the driver's seat...

 

That makes me wonder why I couldn't just cut a piece of sheet aluminum or plastic to fit over the whole existing armrest and then put foam and a cover over that? It would be a little higher when done, but I think that would actually be more comfortable.

 

Looks great, Frog. Nice work.

And yes, Vic does provide excellent service. I ordered replacement leather covers for both front seats...very well constructed and a perfect color match.


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Looks very nice and a much cleaner look without the cup holder.

 

He's done a great job of replicating S / Victory double contrasting stitching.

Graham

 

top job

 

Beautiful job....


RJ237,

You're on the right track. About a year ago I removed my wife's XK8's wrinkly-looking leather console cover, carefully stripped all the broken-down, worn-out foam padding underneath it, used the leather cover as a template, and cut new foam padding from a large sheet of very flexible packing foam that I remembered I had stored up in the attic a few years back. Started with just one layer of new foam, but wound up making and using two layers in an effort to add more padding for comfort as well as to stretch out the original leather cover and make it look better. Used some strong contact cement to hold the new foam padding in place, cleaned the leather cover's outside visible surface with saddle soap and water, and then re-glued the leather cover in place with more contact cement. Worked like a charm, cost me nothing because I already had all the materials, and my wife has never complained about a rough-looking console again. Still looks and feels great today. Just take your time and use your leather cover for a perfect template to make your new foam padding with....

 

Thanks Jon, what I am thinking of is covering not just the arm rest but the whole assembly including the cupholder to make an armrest that looks like the job that Frog did.

 

You need to be careful about the padding you use: I tried to pad my original rest out using an 8mm slab of foam, but it wasn't the right density and made the wrinkles in the leather even worse. The foam used by Jaguar in the armrest is extremely dense to avoid any distortion of the leather.

 

Nice job Frog, so nice to hear that Vic took such good care of you, so now, I'm inspired, as well as my cupholder lid turned out, I prefer the look of your n/c lid, think its time to look for a tatty takeoff myself, welldone!!