Made a leather shift boot (pics)

[muskrat]

A few days ago I was looking at the pathetic peeling pleather shift boot in my car and wondering what I could replace it with. I really like the leather aftermarket boots, but I just can't see spending the money (I'm cheap). Then I thought about the leather I have! When I moved into my house the previous owner left a lot of cool stuff, including a grocery bag full of nice soft leather that he had used for crafts. It's soft like a nice chamois, but at least twice as thick.

So yesterday I decided to put my idea to make a shift boot out of that leather to work. I came home and got out my spare stock shift boot that is in worse shape than mine. The boot is 2 pieces sewn together, so i split one seam and realized that I could make the boot out of one piece of leather. I ironed the old boot flat and used it as a template tracing it onto a nice piece of leather and cut it out.

Next I went to Wal*Mart for more supplies (and some paper towels and conditioner for my wife). I went to the sewing/craft section and found a nice big needle made for leather, in a package with 6 other craft needles. Then I bought a thimble and chose the large one, let me give you a hint, that is a ladies large, not a man's large. Then I bought some black upholstery thread, I tested it in the store trying to break it, and it's pretty darn strong. Last I bought some black fabric dye.

I came back home and started sewing my one seam. I decided to sew it on the inside so nobody would have to see my crappy seam work. I chose the "suede" side of the leather to be the outside. I was surprised at how easy it was to sew the leather, I had to push pretty hard to get the needle through, but I really thought I was going to have to use the pliers to get it in and out of the leather. Anyway it took me an hour to get it sewed up, then I test fitted it on the lower plate and with the top ring installed and here is what I got:


(nice seam moron)







Once I knew it fit well, I took off the top ring and the lower plate and used RIT black fabric dye to dye it black. Worked the dye in for about 5-10 minutes (wearing rubber gloves) then let it sit under the dye for another 30 minutes. After that I removed it from the dye and rinsed it and rung it out following the dye's instructions and then I hung it to dry.

This morning before I left for work it was dry and I put it back together and snapped these pictures:





Next step is to use small pop rivets and rivet washers to attach it to the lower plate and install it.

I was extremely impressed with the way it turned out and that it only took me about 3 hours to make it.

If you need a shift boot too and you have a little tiny bit of sewing skill you can save yourself some money, you will just need to buy some leather for the boot. You might just wanna buy a nice chamois to make the boot out of.

[-E-]

wow that looks so sweet good work

[Bbandit]

niceee!!
great job!

[muskrat]

Thanks for the compliments, I can't wait to get home and install it.

[Dousan_PG]

looks good! nice work. mad skillz!
post some pics when its installed!

[s0ldats]

DUDE! nice!...at first i was thinking...oh no...he's gonna leave it brown?! and then you SAVED MY LIFE by dying it black!!! good JOB

[method2833]

looks excellent!!
alot nicer than stock

[muskrat]

Originally posted by s0ldats
DUDE! nice!...at first i was thinking...oh no...he's gonna leave it brown?! and then you SAVED MY LIFE by dying it black!!! good JOB

Yeah, I couldn't leave it brown, but for being brown, it looked really good, would have matched in a tan leather car. It took the dye a lot better than I thought it would.

I'm glad I chose to do the suede side of the leather as the outside.

[sykikchimp]

Looks Great! I always kind of fancied the idea of a Tan leather interior. Looks great on exotics.. Tan leather with black dash, and carpets..

[CoasTek240]

wow! lets see some installed pics...

i did the same thing with some leather that i bought from an arts and crafts store. mine turned out really nice, but yours looks really good and def unique. nice job!

[WhiteNissanS13]

wow amazing sewing job, that should be featured on the next martha stewart living. once she gets outta jail. good job

[muskrat]

Originally posted by CoasTek240
but yours looks really good and def unique. nice job!

I think the unique look is because I didn't make it out of 2 pieces of leather... I just didn't wanna sew 2 seams! haha

[Bushido]

got any pics of it installed?

[transient]

Sweet. I did that a while back with some nice soft pigskin leather. I'll have to snap a few pics of mine. I did it with black leather and white thread. It looks pretty sweet.

[misnomer]

Where do y'all find this leather? I've dug around all over town and found nothing :-( Looks good, by the way.

[Rennen]

muskrat--That looks very good and original, excellent job on the sewing.


If you are too lazy to make one, or not crafty enough to sew, there is always the option of junkyards. I took a leather shift boot off of my friends wrecked 94 DSM and it fit quite nicely. It is slightly lighter than stock, but looks much better in real life than in the crappy pic. Also, the four seems line up nicely with my Maxima(I think?) shift knob.



-Matt

[muskrat]

Here's a picture of the boot installed:



The proportion is off on the picture since I took it while I was sitting in the car. It makes my shift knob look huge, while It's actually smaller than stock.

[Bbandit]

looks great! nice job! i like it..
can you make me one? LOL
but yea.. is that a boobs errh.. i meant.. boost timer over there?

[muskrat]

Originally posted by Bbandit
is that a boobs errh.. i meant.. boost timer over there?

I didn't think it would look like a boost timer, it's just a battery volt meter, gives a digital read out of volts extended to 1 decimal point, and the LEDs on the side light up green, yellow, and red, so you can have stuff running with the car and if the voltage drops, you will lose and LED and know to start the car up or turn it off. It's also a timer, never used that function before, but I guess I could time trips. It was worth the $9 I spent on it at Target about 5 years ago.