Re: IML: leather seat reconditioning?

Hi;

I don't remember your name but let me offer my advice. If any of the leather in your car has gone stiff like tar paper, and tears just as easily, I think that replacement may be your only option. Given the pictures that I have seen of your car, and where it was stored, the upholstery, with the exception of the vinyl, may be actually be rotten. Leather is organic after all like wood and much like wood it will break down if neglected or stored incorrectly. You could just replace the torn sections but if it is anything like my car it may be a fool's bargain as the untorn ones maybe ready to go, from your description it sounds like they would at least need to be restitched. Usually the leather is only used on the faces of the seats and the armrests so there isn't as much as you might think. In the case of my car only the bolsters, piping, and edges are done in leather, the rest is cloth and vinyl.

For your leather needs I would recommend the Tandy leather company, they have a multitude of leather treatment products, supplies, as well as hides for a very reasonable price. Their leather cleaners, conditioners and dies are cheap enough to try and if that doesn't help they regularly have sales on surplus hides that they acquire from furniture companies and the like. They aren't the only source of cheap hides but they are one that I have done business with personally. Good luck on your experiment.

Best Regards

Arran Foster

1954 Imperial Newport

Needing A Left Side Tailight Bezel and other trim parts.

----- Original Message -----

From: henry ford

To: mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sent: Monday, April 18, 2005 10:55 PM

Subject: IML: leather seat reconditioning?

I posted a few weeks ago about that I was thinking of changing my interior, but that crazy idea was not going to be cheep by no means, so now to help save money and actually get my car restored and look correct I'm going to try to use as much of the original interior as possible,

so to get my question started I have a 59 crown 4 dr ht the seats in my car are 50/50 buckets in front with 2 arm rests the material is black leather. the rear seat has the center arm rest and is also black leather , the rear seat is old looking but other than looks it's in very good condition the leather has no tears or flaws in it but it is very dry and would probably tear if I were to sit my 260lb butt in them,

the front seats are not as good as the rear both fronts have tears where the butt meats the seat , the back rest part of the seats are tear free,

so is it possible to only repair the part of the seat with the tears or would I need the entire front seats recovered. also what would be good to soften up the rear seat leather to help prevent tears. and get rid of the old smell?

I have only used leather cleaners in spray cans on other cars to clean them , I don't have much exp with leather .

also my dash is covered with what I believe to be black leather, it has no cracks or tears in it but it seems to have lifted in a few places. can the original material be reused and glued back down, has anyone done this with success?

and my door panels , they are a aqua color, are they also leather?, or vinyl?

I don't know as of yet what my interior color code is because I cant make out the body tag under the hood just yet, it is corroded to the point that the letters or numbers look the same, I believe the air-condition lines from the condenser that run within 1/2 an inch from the body tag caused the rust to form the way it did. all I see is what looks like (xxx) or (HHH) or something resembling and I have not seen my interior colors on the site, maybe because of my computer monitor but not sure.

also headliners, my headliner was all to pieces when I bought my car, and I don't have a pattern to get a new one made, does anyone have a pattern or an old headliner to sell cheep? I just need something to get a new one reproduced at a local shop.

I live in kentucky 60 miles west from bowling green and 74 miles north west from nashville TN. if anyone has info contact me off the list .

my car wont be ready for any trips this year, but im planing on going to the chattanooga meet in may 27-30 hope to see everyone there,

my wife told me a few weeks ago she saw a car that looked like mine but was a yellow 59 that was in town, anyone know of this car? I wished I had seen it ,

Do you Yahoo!?
Make Yahoo! your home page