Restoring Rock Warrior/Tomahawk Shift knob leather

Tough to see in my sorry pic but I had another piece of material
made for my shifter by 'TufSkinz', when I bought their cup holder insert package.

 

Here is my progress so far.

I got my shift knob in mail, decent shape. A couple scratches on the body, the bolts are ugly and the leather is shot, ugly worn and sticky.

I got a piece of black leather from a local shop, it was a scrap and the guy just gave it to me as he said he had no use for it.

took my shifter apart and identified the correct replacement bolt size if anyone wants to know. You can easily get a set at Home Depot for a few bucks. I found some sweet anodized ones in Amazon for $10 and come in almost any color you want.

my plan is to get the shifter cerakoted in a gray finish, slightly darker than the original polished finish. Just something that matches the interior gray a little better.

 

anybody made any progress on their restorations? i'm itching to do mine, but need to finish up a couple other things first so my wife doesn't lose her mind on me.

 

I got some new anodized hardware in, I am just waiting for a day to go to my guy for cerakote colors and cost

 

I replaced the hardware with stainless, but still looking around for a nice piece of leather to put on it.

 

I made some progress today. Sanded and painted the shifter.

I ended up going with a graphite wheel paint. Supposedly chip resistant. Has a long cute time though. 7 days.

mai my shifter will be graphite, with black leather and Aluminium black hardware

 

Post a pic when you have a chance. I’m curious how it will look painted.

 

Here it is during the process, I think just after second coat.

I am hoping it dries in a matt finish.

I used an old tent pole across a ladder like a rotisserie to paint the shifter.

It is drying right now, should be safe to handle tonight but paint says it cures in a week

 

Nice. I'd wait for it to cure a week before going further. Patience is a virtue!

 

yeah, if it’s two things I have. Time and patience lol.

I am sure the week cure time is recommended due to this is a wheel paint and wheels are subjected to rock chips much more than the shifter.

but I’m gonna let it sit outside where it is

 

Going to look great! Nice work...so far!

 

That looks fantastic! Good attention to detail

 

Post pics as you move forward

 

will do.

I found a m3x.50 tap on Amazon for $6. I’m going to use to chase the threads in the handle. They are little gunked up and some of my new shiny hardware is not sitting flush.

some of them are, but some do not. So it tells me there is gunk in the threads.

I was playing with the leather portion of the shifter and I going to use some spray adhesive. It will make things easier when I go install it back into the shifter.

I will take and post pics along the way

 

Update.

so after the paint cured I went to assemble the shifter.
I used spray adhesive and relief cuts in the leather to get it wrap nicely. I should add the leather I got is noticeably thicker than the “leather” that came stock. Using a flat plastic blade to help tuck the leather in the gaps to make it nice didn’t look perfect in my eyes. Also got a chip in the paint from the plastic tool. Ugh

also went to install the black hardware and saw that they were not all sitting flush. I thought it was a thread problem that is why I chased the threads with a tap but no.

I realized the heads on the new hardware were a few thousandths larger than the oem hardware.

so I decided to start over.

I also found the paint I used, being wheel paint went on thick and closed some already tight tolerances around the screw heads and the leather piece. Also it was a little dark for me as I wanted the same Gary color on our dash pieces.

 

So I am stripping the wheel paint.

I already addressed the hardware issue by reaming the holes clean with a 15/64 drill and re-chasing the threads. Hardware is good to go now.

I stripped the leather and I am now looking for a thinner leather piece.

I am going to get the handle cerakoted by my gun guy. He has done numerous guns for me and I know the finish will hold up and does not add to much thickness like the wheel paint did.

Stay tuned

 

following, I will probably refinish mine and offload the TRD one!

 

So I got my “metal work” done. Open the holes a couple thousandths over to accommodate the new aluminum black anodized hardware.

dropped off the handle to my cerakote guy and went with tungsten gray as it matches the tundra gray dash pretty closely.

Just need to find a thinner leather for the insert portion

 

Finished product.

The leather was a bit thick, but I flattened it out as best as I could to fit the tight seams and it worked at good enough for me.

Also went with black anodized bolts to break up the silver a bit!

Would have liked to refinished the metal, but I didn’t want to get too crazy with this. Maybe if I get bored down the road, I’ll mess with making it a little darker.

 

Looks great!

 

Nice job!!

 

Got mine done today!

had it cerakoted tungsten gray to match dash. Came out pretty good

I have a set of plastic interior pry tools that came with this thin sided one that really came in handy tucking into the leather edges.

 

Turned out awesome! Good work!!

 

I did mine this past week. Stopped short of painting anything this go round. I think if I try that I'll paint the recessed areas on the side the same yellow, orange, red, and black I used for the top.

This was my temporary shifter knob while I had it apart:


Here's the finished product:

 

All of them are looking good. Great info on this thread.

 

I just bought a 2010 RW and mine was worn out. I replaced the rusting stainless steel bolts and applied some carbon fiber vinyl.

 

I have one I got my hands on used that I have dismantled right now. I picked up some new goatskin to redo the leather, but I want to get the actual body of the shifter sandblasted and re-finished first - looking at doing cerakote Tungsten like an earlier post here...except I'll be running red screws in it.

 

Appreciate this thread! Used everyone's advice and happy with my results. I'm going to look for some better quality leather since the leather I got is cheap and feels it but it was the blue I wanted.

 

Got myself a new project today