How To Refurbish Your Door Pillars

Taking the pillar off

see the 3 holes in the pillar? that's where the clips are that hold it in, its a push fit so its easy to pry off and put on again, start at the top, pull back the trim that goes around the door frame just enough to clear the pillar, you use your fingers for this



then pull the pillar about 1/3 down (next to the top clip hole, NOT the round ones) it should come away easy, then do the middle one then the bottom one, and pull it out



Now you have to clean it

use spirit or something with a solvent, any left overs just scrape off, it comes off easy,make sure its all of and nice and clean, it doesn't have to be perfect, the leather will hide the imperfections, just make sure it has no cleaning spirit left on it, the glue wont stick otherwise, i wont post picks, you know what a clean one will look like!!

Marking up

You don't have to be precise with this (that will come later, and save you glue and time) just lay it on the table, put the pillar on top, roughly mark around it, leaving pleant of room around the pillor so you know it will all fit and go around the sides ok
mark pillar and leather right left up down, so when you put it back to glue it, your then 100% sure its the correct way around



Now Open your beer (if you done this already then your some kind on alcoholic !!)



Ok so far so good, now first spray the BACK of the leather (the fluffy bit, not the shiny bit) all over the back evenly, then set aside, now do the face of the pillar

DON'T use newspaper to lay any of this on, it will stick to the news paper otherwise

place the pillar on to the leather making sure its all uniform and will wrap around and along where you placed it, (otherwise you will have to rip it off and start again to re align it) take your time doing this, you only want to do it once!!

Now you need to shape that leather in to the pillar do all the creases and crevasses, push and mould it in to them with your fingers, working from the MIDDLE to the outside, dont wory about folding the edges over just yet, do that later...... you done all that? it should be nice and smooth now, and the face bonded, no pockets of air in the bends, on the bends and crevices just apply pressure with your fingers, it will stick, its a contact glue, it just needs you to apply the pressure, be hard and firm with it





Looks good already don't it??

Now trim it, about 1/4inch from the edge, this is easy, because when you sprayed the leather with the glue, the glue is now dry on the leather, and cuts like cardboard, because its stiff now,

Trimmed up now





Folding and finishing off

Don't rush this...its all easy, just take your time,



glue JUST ONE EDGE all the way along, spraying the leather and the pillar at the same time

Waite 3 mins for it to go off (follow instructions on you can of contact adhesive)

Then again FROM THE MIDDLE fold it over gently working out





on bends you will have to cut the leather to go around curves like so...





It should all end up like this

Hi Dopey.
Just a small question, how did you do the seat belt pillars as your post was a great help doing my front door ones. As I've looked around to see if anybody else has done them and cannot find anything, you help would be appreciated.

Pull the cover post out, its obvious once you done that

J L Carr said:

Hi Dopey.
Just a small question, how did you do the seat belt pillars as your post was a great help doing my front door ones. As I've looked around to see if anybody else has done them and cannot find anything, you help would be appreciated.

Click to expand...

Also I explain a little in this link https://www.landyzone.co.uk/land-rover/roof-lining-fix.171394/