This is something that's been bugging me for a while. The center console was one of the first things I bought for the truck, long before I had any idea I was going to do this red interior swap. The stitching on the lid is a dark gray. I tried dying it red with a fabic marker, and it just turned an ugly brown.
I also tried ordering a new skin for it, but the one I got on eBay was cheap shit that didn't fit right. It's hard to find factory lids with red stitching, and when you do, they cost about as much as I paid for the entire console. So that's out.
I finally decided to just replace the colored stitching. When I took the lid apart to try to install the eBay skin, I found out the colored thread is purely decorative. There's a separate seam that actually holds the leather together. The colored thread doesn't even go through the leather. It's held in place by more conventional thread.
Finding the right materials was a massive pain in the ass. Even more so because I didn't want to buy 1000 foot industrial bobbins of thread. The staples were another nightmare. The skin is stapled to the plastic lid, but they're really short. Most of the tools that shoot those staples are air powered and expensive. The staples themselves had to come from the UK. The stapler is a lot smaller than a typical household stapler.
Installing the staples was another problem. They just didn't want to dig into the plastic. I eventually found a way to heat up the plastic with the hot air gun I use for electronics work. Heat the plastic, stretch the leather around the edge, don't lose tension on the leather while you fumble for the stapler, try to shoot the staple straight, all while burning your fingers on the hot plastic the entire time.
But hey, at least I saved a couple hundred dollars to make a little detail most people won't even notice, right?
This is why I never get anything done.
