F355 Berlinetta TLC (interior)

So I put together a list of what I thought it would take to sort this car and so I started with the interior. It is painful for me to admit but I didn't end up doing most of the labor due to my schedule of being out of the country for a bit. While I usually do all interior and engine work on my cars as well as washing maintenance, I usually leave the paint correction, polishing and sealing to my detail guy. This time I had him do the interior.

The driver seat was in good condition and the passenger seat was in excellent condition. I had the seats removed, cleaned, steamed and then a multi-day/multi-application leatherique treatment along with all the other leather. The dash has a small amount of sun shrinkage near the top left area around the airbag as well as the passenger A pillar. The carpet was cleaned and then steam cleaned although it was already extremely clean. The seats had never been taken out it seems since the original plastic was still partially under the seats and un-stretched.

Here is a pic after the latest steam of the carpet and the 1st application of leatherique to the passenger seat.

There are no sticky parts as either they were fixed a while back or original pieces were put in replacement.

Also, I fixed the driver pilot window switch bezel and also have a spare just in the case it breaks.

I also put in the Hill engineering passenger foot rest. I also have the driver side dead pedal to put in next weekend.

Lastly I swapped out the shifter ball for an original and replaced the CF ashtray with an original from new stock.

I have a stock of interior screws including for the door panels, middle console, and other parts known to break like the door pilot window switch bezel so even with wear, I should be good.

Except for changing out the steering wheel for OEM airbag or non-airbag, maybe changing out the CF door sills for OEM and swapping the head unit for either a becker original or another alpine but with bluetooth music (along with some good speakers), the interior is done.

Note, I do need to figure out how to recondition the red plastic release button for the seatbelt clip as it is sun faded. Any thoughts?
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A few months back I bought a seat belt extender for the purpose of having our manufacturer color match the red. But, not sure how viable this will be given the construction. I'm Also guessing the bets assemblies are saftey certified.

BTW: you are missing at least one floor mat retainer

https://store.**********.com/products/ferrari-floor-mat-retainers-set-of-4

 

look'in great

 

Here is a closeup of the seat after cleaning and one iteration of leatherique
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Looks good

 

Where? I see from pics of your 1995 it seems I have the same retainers on the passenger side. In my pic it is barely noticeable because of the angle. Look right near the door sill.

Am I missing something? (lol)
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Yep - I see the little piece sticking out of your photo now

 

Hi,

Do you have a picture to show us how they looked like before? Is it easy to apply?

cheers

Yves

 

Not that would help you. They were similar in look but the steam cleaned the little dirt that was there but it was clear they needed to be hydrated so I'll do yet another leatherique here soon to hopefully get the leather in good shape. It's probably an 8 of 10 and I want it a 9 of 10.

 

I had a quick look at the leatherique homepage, it all seems quite complicated, If I do understand correctly, I have to send in a sample?!

Do you remove the dirt before you apply the leatherique?

 

That's if you want to dye the seat with new color. Letaehrique 2 step care process is very easy, just time consuming. The oil should sit on the leather to let it soak in.

 

Leatherique is just....
clean your seats with a mild soap
steam your seats (steam clean with a steamer not a rug cleaner)
dry completely and let sit
use the leatherique product excessively on all leather preferably when you can have the leather warm and in the sun or similar.
wipe clean after a few hours
use leatherique again if that wasn't enough.
wipe clean again and use a protector (product) afterwards.

It will help with dry and abused leather.

You can also do a dye if you want but I would't.

 

Conditioning and dying are two totally different processes and goals.