Leather restoration

As most of you know i,m pretty cynical about most things,. and something has to prove itself to me before i endorse it,.
The seats on mommy's fancy ford were showing their age and UV damage,. I looked around for leather rejuvenating products and read up about this company,.
leatherique
I ordered some of the product,. and for the past week i,ve been redoing the seat,.(just 1 for an experiment,)
First i slathered on the rejuenating oil,. and the leather slurped it up really quick,. it,s best to leave the car out in the hot sun,. after a couple of coatings,. i cleaned the oil and muck off the seats,. a huge difference in itself,.
I then used laquer thinners and removed a bunch of the badly cracked dye,and filled other cracks that weren't so deep,..
spread on a really thin coat of crack filler and let it dry,. i used a piece of laminated paper so it bent and molded very nicely to the seat,.
i was amazed at how easy it is to remove the dye,.and just how the cracks are in the dye not the leather,.
i thnned out the dye and did 2 light coats with a really expensive soft brush,.
let the pictures speak for the job,..
lots of you guys have nice cars with really cracked leather seats,. and this is how to make them just like new again,. read their web site and look at customers projects,.





















after they dry completely a nice buff and i think they will be awesome,
most all of the cracks including the tiny spider web ones have all but disappeared,.
i,m really pleased as mommy's fancy ford is a nice car,. and this will make it nicer still,.
and this winter i can see re-doing the impala ss seats i have in the black car,
The leatherique guy matched the color from a scrap of material i sent him cut from underneath the seat,
The dye is a much better product than SEM ,.

Nick

Wow, that really made a difference. Very nice indeed.

impressive!

Are the filled cracks soft a supple like the rest of the leather?

Wow. That's impressive, Nick!

How much was the repair kit?

EDIT: Can you post over at BADASS, too? The guys'd appreciate it there, too.

Lacquer thinner and leather makes me cringe but hard to argue with the results, looks great! I'd be curious about a six month posting to see how they've held up.

Great thread and great results. Not a day goes by that I don't think about filling the cracks that my wife sits on.

Wait. wut?

I would like to see it in 6 months too.

well as i said go to the web site and see the customer gallery's,. the crack filler stays supple,.
there are some very high end cars in that gallery,.

i did the impala ss seats in the black wagon with SEM 4790? burgundy maple wahtever,.,. they are cracked pretty good after nearly 3 yrs,.

The laquer thinner doesn't hurt the leather,. it just removes the dye,and evaporates real quick( need both front windows down tho as i caught wicked dizzy spells and a head ache after),.. i used terry towel rags and turned them over constantly, as it removed the dye

I was just outside,. the dye has dried to the touch,.and i can squash the leather by hand and it seems fine,.

I doubt this company would have the reputation they have since 1968, if their product didn't perform,. i tried to find a complaint anywhere on the internet but came up with nothing,.

I actually bought this restoration stuff a year ago,. the crack filler had dried out,. i called them and they sent me a new pot absolutley free and i got it in 3 days,
pretty decent customer service and i caused the problem by not using the stuff when i got it,.i paid around $100.00 from the canadian distributor,.

i got a bottle of leather oil,. leather cleaner, custom matched dye, prepping agent, crack filler, 2 paint brushes,

Re-doing the leather steering wheel in our cars would work pretty good. Fred refinished one with Duplicolor for me for a roady wagon in tan, and it lasted a year before the green started to come back through,

I did the lumina wheel with SEM and it still looks good,. (black to burgundy). the pontiac GP shift knob and the console all still look great, but the carpet on the console faded bad from uv,. so i may invest in this companys carpet dye,.


Nick

I'm glad you posted this Nick. I've got several Bonneville seats that need this work done to them. The leather itself is good but the dye is cracked, just like yours. I'll be trying this out eventually.

Thanks for posting this Nick!!

I have changed my business model from "cleaning" cars, to "repairing" them and this is exactly what I was looking for to fix the sun damaged leather here in the south....

Question, with the dye, do you think you could use it to change the color of an entire seat (say, from black replacement seat to tan?) or is this better suited for crack filling?

Krzdimond wrote:

Thanks for posting this Nick!!

I have changed my business model from "cleaning" cars, to "repairing" them and this is exactly what I was looking for to fix the sun damaged leather here in the south....

Question, with the dye, do you think you could use it to change the color of an entire seat (say, from black replacement seat to tan?) or is this better suited for crack filling?

check their web site gallery,. color changes look to be a breeze,although dark to lighter colors will take a couple of coats obviously,. the more original dye you remove, the better the cover will be with the lighter color crack filler is just for really bad spots, and lazy impatient guys like me,.,.IF i was motivated had more patience etc,.i,m sure the seat would look brand new if all the old dye was removed first,. then the raw leather oiled to make it really supple,.. the dye is an interesting liquid,. it really settles out and is quite different from paint,.the light cream beige of mommys' ford really hides any brush stroke unless you get really close to it,. just like a light colored paint job hides flaws, so i,d guess the darker colors need to have really thin wet coats applied,.
looking at the job in the sunlight this morning,. i will spray the other front seat and console,.i,ve left some small brush strokes, guy at leatherique tells me that i didn't thin the dye enough, it dries really quick and if you go back over it like i did ina couple of spots,you'll get brush marks as it,s already drying and doesn't settle like it does when the brush is wet,.
great learning experience for me,.and as i mentioned with patience you could do a really great job,. especially if the seats were on a bench for easier access and scrubbing,.
yes i could see a small business coming from this process,.results are dramatic,..
Nick

Just wanted to post up that thanks to this post I ordered and applied some Leatherique and it has revived some Bonneville leather seats that I thought were beyond salvaging. I have not redyed them yet but I can say that the Rejuvenator Oil and Prestine Clean alone did an amazing job. I'll post up some pics when I can. Definitely a very good product, and Caprice, Roadmaster and Bonneville leather seats in good condition are becoming very hard to find.

I would love to see how the seats Nick did for his Mom look now.Its been over a year and the
initial results were very impressive.

Just started on the wagon last night. Does anyone know if the 2nd row seat on the '94s is actually leather? I'm wondering if only the base is leather and the back is vinyl.

I'm pretty sure they're both pieces are vinyl.

Tom

Flasheroo wrote:

I would love to see how the seats Nick did for his Mom look now.Its been over a year and the
initial results were very impressive.

"Mommy" is the kids mother,...

The term used today is "my baby mama" (NO APOSTROPHE)

My mistake,must be the different country's and strange accents!

Neat stuff! Big improvement!!

The product sounds like something my brother and I used in the late 80's on a Jag XKE we were restoring. It had terribly cracked green seats, which we changed to black. The results were amazing, and the color held perfectly for the 6 or so months we had it before we sold it. I would be suprised if it did not hold for good.The lacquer thinner scared me too, as it is a very powerful solvent. But, once the conditioner and dye were applied, they were supple and soft again. I think the secret IS the lacquer thinner as it removes everything, allowing the conditioners and dyes to do their job. Good job on your moms car, by the way.

Just wanted to bump this up again. I finally got a nice day to treat and clean the gray leather seats in my 99 Town & Country minivan. The leather was actually still soft (much softer than the Bonneville seats) but dirty dirty dirty (previous owner put 164k on it and we've put another 50k on it). Just amazing how much dirt came off the seats and how much more flexible they are now. Rejuvenator Oil and Prestine Clean aren't cheap but the results are amazing, and several resellers run sales now and then.

NOTE: if you do this on tan seats, you will think you are removing dye. You aren't - you're removing dirt and grease.

I'm about to place an order for the Fleetwood...driver's seat and console top need some love.

Chris

The hotter the day, the better.

When I used what I think was the same product many years ago, I did both seats (as mentioned in a previous post). What no one has mentioned, and I am curious about, is the gloss level on the finished seat vs. the untreated seat. Take my Roady wagon, for example. Like most of our cars, I imagine, the passenger front seat is nearly perfect, yet the driver seat is quite worn. Obviously the product does an amazing job, but does it leave the two seats looking very different from each other? And, if it does, how many kits would you think it would require to do both front seats in a Roady Limited wagon?

Mark 96 Roady wrote:

When I used what I think was the same product many years ago, I did both seats (as mentioned in a previous post). What no one has mentioned, and I am curious about, is the gloss level on the finished seat vs. the untreated seat. Take my Roady wagon, for example. Like most of our cars, I imagine, the passenger front seat is nearly perfect, yet the driver seat is quite worn. Obviously the product does an amazing job, but does it leave the two seats looking very different from each other? And, if it does, how many kits would you think it would require to do both front seats in a Roady Limited wagon?

The drivers seat will clean up, the stuff doesn't really put a shine on the leather at all,.it really dors bring it back to factory look again,. trick is to clean both front seats together,.you'll be surprised how much crap comes out of a seat that looks clean,.
It works so much better on really hot days,. the crap oozes out of the leather,. and when you are done, you'll be amazed,.I,m cynical at the best of times and rareley endorse any products,. but this is worth the money,.
One kit does a lot,..

Thanks for the info. I'll get some.

I just went to the link Nick provided, and there are many amazing before and after pictures of car seats, consoles, even home leather furniture. I am anxious to try this as there are a couple of deep cracks in the Roady's driver seat that are very close to breaking through.

Get the leather treated as soon as you can. This will stop the folding crack damage.

I did a complete set of front seats last summer. The dye didn't adhere nearly as well as I would have hoped, but that could very well be inadequate prep. If you get dye, make sure you follow the instructions and send a large sample (I think it's 1" square, but check the site) so they can get a good color match.

If you get the klear koat (I think that's what it's called) it will put quite a gloss on the seats. I used extra from a steering wheel recoat I did.