Leather Clean & Re-Colour

The Rovering Member

The Rovering Member

Well-Known Member
I picked these up from Liverpool last week:





They are P5 but are to replace my 110's front seats as they're the same bar these being recliners which was optional on the P4. You just don't see them in respectable condition normally but I saw these on fleabay in March almost as soon as they appeared, buy-it-now for £90. I didn't hesitate for long as we were heading for Chester last weekend anyway so I knew I could get them without too much hassle (I also collected an unused 2200 three-row radiator for Bruiser with thermo-switch fitted, buy-it-now in February for £80. That came from Rugeley. Along with an old cast-iron water pump for the garden from Alfreton & we visited Rockdemon to boot. :LOL: ).
The guy was planning on making them into chairs for his office but never got round to it & has just been storing them in his unit. They're dirty but the leather is mostly intact, on a par with my seats when I bought the car but which two years of daily use destroyed. So any tips, advice, recommendations & links to your posts on seat renovation will be much appreciated. They're to be re-coloured in Tan.

Thanks chaps.
 
They look very promising.

Tom from Lake View's sole piece of advice to me before I embarked on my leather seats was,

Get the seats as clean as you possibly can before starting the work
Click to expand...

I followed the instructions from The Furniture Clinic to the letter, adding a "Stage Zero" of cleaning the seats with Cif cream.
 
I used furniture clinic products to restore my faded leather seats. I was pleased with the result, but it doesn't seem as durable as original, especially over the vinyl bits.
 
I first of all clean the seats with detergent and water and allow to dry thoroughly. Then scrub off all the clearcoat and colour coat with thinners and 000 steel wool, changing the wool regularly . Allow to dry thoroughly , and then soften the leather with glycerin ( available from pharmacies - a 250 ml bottle will probably be enough ) applied with the fingers and well rubbed in . I often use 6 or more coats of this , allowing a minimum of 1 hour ( and preferably more ) between coats until the leather shows signs of not wanting any more. You can tell this from the fact that the early coats are absorbed, and lose their surface sheen, within minutes, but later coats take much longer to be absorbed. Next is a coat or 2 of diluted PVA adhesive, followed by filling cracks etc with Furniture Clinic or similar flexible filler. Again, several very thin coats of this are usually necessary, rubbing down with wet and dry of progressively finer grades , starting with perhaps 320 grade and going finer to 1000- between coats . Then more PVA, and the colour coats can then be started, not too many and not too few , with rubbing down with perhaps 2000 grade wet and dry between coats . The final stage is to apply a finishing lacquer. It is best to buy both gloss and matt and mix them to a sheen level that you require - this is a suck it and see operation . Good luck with it - it is mainly patience which is required
 
Yes, I can see that. :LOL:

I'll do it in stages as other cars will be taking priority due to the fact that I'm hoping to hang on to the P4 along with my P5B & Bruiser.

Thanks very much for the tips thus far.
 
Ooh, they look good. I have a pair just like them in my P5 project so I'll be interested to see how they come up



Dave
 
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