Leather arm rest on the doors? - Toyota Nation Forum : Toyota Car and Truck Forums

shiftin2sixth · 06-22-2007, 09:42 AM

I saw some pictures of someones truck on here with leather seats. Please forgive me I can't find them now. The arm rest on the doors was also leather. does anyone have a picture of this? I'm looking to do just my door arm rest in leather but I wanted to see the pictures again. Thanks!! Also how time consuming is it to remove the door panels?

06Sport · 06-22-2007, 10:39 AM

these ones were done in Suede

http://www.customtacos.com/forum/showthread.php?t=89248

Southernman · 06-22-2007, 02:26 PM

I did my armrests when I recovered the seats. Taking the door panels off is easy - there's a how-to in the Audio sticky thread. It takes a bit more work to separate the armrest from the door panel. It's plastic welded onto the rest of the panel. You have to drill out the plastic spot-welds to remove the armrest section.

I added my matching dark gray vinyl over top of the factory cloth so it served as a bit of padding. You'll need to trim off some of the excess factory material so that the armrest panel will still fit in the door panel opening. Since the plastic spot-welds are destroyed when you remove the panel, you'll have to find a way reattach the armrest to the door panel. I used a two-part epoxy to do that. Use a strong adhesive and be pretty liberal with it. Otherwise it won't hold any weight (elbows) and will pop out again.

It's not hard - just take your time and work methodically. I thought about using leather instead of the vinyl, but I didn't for two reasons: the vinyl I found has a very convincing leather grain to it. Also, the armrest curve is pretty significant. I had to use a heat gun to stretch the vinyl so as not to get any wrinkles. I don't know that I could have done with leather.

I have photos somewhere... I'll post them when I find them.

LyteFly · 06-22-2007, 03:34 PM

Here are pics of mine.

My New 07 Taco is HOME (pics)

shiftin2sixth · 06-22-2007, 05:34 PM

Thanks guys

ilovetacos · 06-22-2007, 09:48 PM

The black suede looks pretty sweet...and $40/door isn't bad.

Southernman · 06-23-2007, 10:57 AM

For $40 a door, I'm wondering if they actually took the door panel apart or if they just applied the suede and tucked it into the gap between the panels. With suede, you could probably do that since it's thinner than vinyl or leather. I don't think you could do that with heavier materials - I think the panel would have to come apart.