My 04 Grande Build-up!

[craigm Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close craigm]

What kind of $ are you talking for the front seats to be reupholstered?


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[jhiace Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close jhiace]

Nothing, well almost.

I paid $500 for the leather, and i am doing the actual work myself.

[jhiace Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close jhiace]

Today I received the leather, floor mats and spare wheels work light holder...

I also had the car serviced on Friday and all is good except for a little leak in the drivers rear shock and the front rotors are buggered.. So I bought new rotors and bendix pads which will hopefully be on this week. I also ordered a k&n high flow filter.

Slowly gettin there bit by bit but funds are going to be low for a few months with my holiday coming up but after that I'm hoping to do the suspension lift and a few other things.

[jhiace Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close jhiace]

Have slowly been retrimming the seats after work so it is taking a little longer then normal but it is coming up nice. I have got the whole back seat done now and will start on the front seats this weekend.

I also ordered a couple of custom rocker switches to control the work lights and emergency lights aswell. Going to hopefully pick up a new Supercharge MFM70 marine battery to fit in it aswell.

I also put the K & N filter in, Ordered the work lights for the back, Getting the rotors and pads fitted on Thursday and am about to order a 2" suspension lift.. Just got to decide on what to go with, i ran EFS in my old hilux and they are a bloody great spring so am thinking about going that way with this one too.

Heres a peak at the seats...

[jhiace Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close jhiace]

Just a minor update,

I finally decided on the suspension lift and ordered the 45mm EFS lift at a pretty good price, I also ordered the airbag spacers from amts.

I received my custom rocker switches and LED work lights so I will have a busy weekend fitting things up. I've just got the drivers seat to trim now too and then that's all done. Today I installed a green LED in the front light/sunglasses compartment which shoots directly down to light up the concole area when, it turns on when the headlights are on. This is commonly referred to as 'submarine lighting' and I got the idea from my partners Golf and my accord euro had it too, it is a little bright so I will dim it down a little with a filter but it looks really good.

[jhiace Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close jhiace]

Today i installed my two custom rocker switches. One is for the work lights going on the back and the other is for the emergency lights (for some reason when ever i go anywhere theres always something that happens so its good to have some lights that are visible before it's too late). The two switches are installed in the two switch blanks in the centre console. All i had to do was file either side of the hole where the plastic sticks out and they slot straight in. The writing on them is red and when they are active the logo lights up green but i am going to pull the tops off them and see if i can swap the LED's over to have the writing green and the logo red.

[jhiace Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close jhiace]

I also took a couple of photos of the retrim progress, just the drivers seat and all head rests to do. I also took a couple of shots of the green LED and the effect it gives.

[Guest Close Guest]

Nicely done Josh. With the switches you could turn them upside down and also rewire the back. It might just work.

[jhiace Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close jhiace]

Thanks Andrew, unfortunately I can't just turn the top around as that would mean the image is on all the time and the writing is what will turn on and off. Do you mean rewire the back of it to trick it into turning the different colour on? I don't know if that's physically possible to do.

[Guest Close Guest]

I haven't tried it myself so I'm not sure. The switches I organised for the group buy is green at the top wired to the dash and red at the bottom that comes with the switch. Then on the rocker is the graphic and text for the top and a bar at the bottom.

[jhiace Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close jhiace]

I popped the top of the switch off today and the LED's are not removable, they are soldered into the circuit and not a plug in thing. Only way to change them would be to pull the switch apart and im not keep on doing that.... theres also no way of wiring it differently to activate difference lights either.

[jhiace Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close jhiace]

Got a few more things crossed of the list now..
Firstly the new suspension and airbag spacers arrived, hopefully they will all be fitted up next Thursday.



I also installed the work light bracket and lights and wired it all up, the lights run off a switch which is connected to permanent power. I also wired in a very bright red LED warning light which lights up the drivers side of the interior to tell you the lights are on incase they shouldn't be but i did wire them up to the handbrake so with the handbrake on they won't turn on.
They are lamps from Led Auto Lamps, and they have 4 X 3 Watt LED's and they are extremely bright. And very little!

[jhiace Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close jhiace]

[jhiace Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close jhiace]

I also received a roll of 3M carbon fibre look vinyl to cover over the hideous wood grain inside the car. I did the two dash panels today as they just pop off and am very happy how they turned out. It was just a matter of using a small flat blade screw driver to pop them off, then with a clean rad (and wax and grease remover if needed) cleaning the panels down, cut out an oversized piece of vinyl, peel backing off and stick down. You do need something to push it down with and i used the actual plastic tool sign writers use but you can get creative here within limits, anything too sharp may cut the vinyl. Then with a heat gun apply a small amount of heat around the edge to be folded over ( i heated about 100mm at a time) and then fold it over. use a trim knife or scissors to trim the excess away and this is the final result! Might see what else would look good on the prado in carbon fibre!

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