Greetings, I'm looking at a 99 355F1. Good mechanicals, but the sun has clearly beat the crap out of the leather. The seat leather can be fixed with some good leather treatment, but the dash is beginning to pull and will need to be re-covered. Anybody know what this is likely to run? Anybody know of a good place to ship this work out to? I'm trying to figure out how much more to extract from the seller for this work. Cheers, RC
Michael Rozenstraten Ferrari Service of Costa Mesa 2148 Newport Blvd. Unit B Costa Mesa, CA 92627 949-548-9541 949-642-7130 Fax http://www.ferrariservice.ws I just had my insturment pod exchanged for a recovered one from Micheal. It looks great. The leather texture is not as rough as the rest of the dash, expected. The seam is perfect. Pulling the rest of the dash to send it to him. I don't know the cost. Ken
If you want to try it yourself check out this: http://ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=12545&highlight=leather+dash+mike I did the removal and re-installation of the dash myself, figure about a day total labor. You can determine your own labor rate My interior guy, John Dutton a.k.a. "The Mad Stitcher" in Atlanta charged $1200 for his labor to recover the dash and bits after I handed them to him. I didn't go back to leather cuz I didn't want to have to recover again in the future and not have to worry about parking in sunlight without a sunscreen. I used "Alcantara" Ultra-Sueade material. Kinda looks like Mousehair of Ferraris past and kinda like the stuff used in the F40. NOT prone to U.V. fade or shrinkage. Material cost was $85 a yard and I used 4 yards. Enough to do the dash, dash pod, parts of the door bits and the rear bits (they were "shrinking" also). Not sure of the cost of leather, but if you go back to leather, be sure to get lot samples as the grain varience can cause a mismatch to the parts you don't recover. JD Image Unavailable, Please Login
Jeff, I see a fair amount of glare from the windshield reflection off of my shiny black leather dash pod. Just as a datapoint, would I see less glare if I recovered my instrument dash pod in alcantara, from your experience?
I guess that I don't have reflections from the Alcantara covered dash as It hasn't caught my attention The fabrics material characteristics would tend to "diffuse" the light, where-as the leather would tend to "reflect" the light. JD
Alcantara looks very nice, but are you sure it does not fade? One of my 360C dash with this material has faded badly and the fuzzy texture has worn away. I was thinking of recovering it in Alcantara again, but did not want to go through the trouble if it will wear out easily.
It's more susceptible to dampness and humidity, but if looked after nicely stays great for ages... look in a 80's 90's Maserati Bi Turbo model .... they do the dash, seat squabs, headlining too... they are the best looking/feeling interior of any italian car IMO.
Thanks... It's sitting on a shelf in my office oh..... I think you really mean .......... I found a Challange hub (eBay find) , painted it black with that spray Plasti-dip stuff and found a new old stock discontinued Momo "Club 3" steering wheel (another eBay find) and a Ferrari horn button (from G.Evans). just have to find the resistance value of the airbag to stick a resistor in circuit to make the air bag light turn off as I just don't want to simply remove the bulb. JD
can you say " B A N G" ? I don't want to potentially trigger the bag with the current a V.O.M. may put through the contacts. Could be very very dangerous. Something I DON'T want to chance. What I plan to do is put a potentiometer connecting where the airbag was previously and changing the resistance until the light goes off, reseting the codes between tries. When I find the correct value, then I'll put a fixed resistor in place. Did the same thing with an Audi I had that had side air bags in the seats when I replaced them with Recaros. Work fine then, so I'm using it for my model when I do the 355 steering wheel air bag. JD
If anyone needs a extra 355 dash I have one , It was recoverd but it never came out like I would have liked so I bought a new one . The leather work is not bad just nat a good as I would have liked . Jeff your dash looks great , where di you get the material ? Bill
Got the material from Gulf Fabrics. Their contact info is about half way down the page: http://www.ultrasuede.com/where_to_buy/index.html They used to have a web site, but that no longer seems to be the case. http://www.ultrasuede.com/products/automotive/aftermarket/ JD
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Bill what did it cost to replace the dash? p.s. i was going to post a pic of my car but apparently i'm at my attachment limit? Do I have to delete old pics?
Jeff, that looks insanely good. Very nice choice. Ditto the Momo wheel. The whole bit looks OEM quality or better.
