kenloen

also posted on the 911uk forum

When I bought the car the biggest disappointment to me was the state of the seats. Sure they are comfortable and the electric adjustment is cool, but the seats had scuff marks and scratches on the bolsters that drew attention when on the inside.

So I thought about swapping them out but the cost put me off, then I looked into a refurb process, and after reading how leathers is coloured I figured I could give it a go.. so the seats were removed, a leather restore kit ordered and the process began.

the initial photos are of when the seats were taken from the car and the leather stripped right back and cleaned, this is a lot worse than when they were in the car!






Colour kit arrived, but straight away I could see the colour was way off..

after speaking to the supplier it was decided a sample of the seat would be needed for a paint match, luckily the seats have plenty excess material folded and tucked away around the back of the seats, easily enough for a sample to be cut from without interfering with the seat.. so a week or so later the new colour arrived..







So there you go - from the initial photos to the finished item is 3 coats of dye, I used a airbrush kit to apply and found the whole job pretty easy. The final dye colour is not quite 100% compared to the door cards, but its not far off and unless you were looking for that specifically your unlikely to notice - I'm guessing the sample I supplied from the seat had been tucked away and never exposed to 20+ years of sun bleach/fade.

Overall though I am well chuffed. The seats look the part and are no longer letting the side down..

oh, and as a aside, I found a non slip dash mat in Sainsbury's that cut down to this

raymond-turner

That is amazing!

Please tell, where did you get the dye from, and what type of air-brush?

I need to re-colour my seats, I'm sure I could do that!!

Cheers....

kenloen

thank you

the dye kit was from a company called bespoke leathering and cost around £65 all in, the airbrush is a clarke kit I think was from toolmart, though I needed an additional air can I bought from a local toy/model railway shop.

it is a simple stage by stage process that is not at all difficult - any mistakes/drips during the colouring process by me were wiped clean using isoproponol sprayed onto a cloth.

911Jetta

I used to think I should avoid cars with worn leather seats, too expensive to fix or the seat just needed to be replaced ($$)...but this is one of a few threads in the last couple months detailing some amazing refurbishing results. Plus, now I worry less about my seats...everything can be fixed.

Thanks for sharing!

AOW162435

Fantastic results!


Andreas

Dsqr964

Awesome looking seats, nice blue. Great job, I will be tackling the seats in my girl in about a year. Other things will come first. I have slowly working my list, but then I read something here or am under the bed pan and see something else I want just 'right' . Again great work and thanks for the posted pics. -D²

PS: About how long was the process for you including drying time? Thanks.

kenloen

cheers again,

The actual prep work of cleaning and softening took a morning then left to dry overnight. The 1st colour coat applied in around an hour wiping/redoing any drips. This was dry an hour later and I could have applied another coat, but I knew I had time so waited till the next day. The 2nd coat was applied then another days wait. The final gloss coat applied in the morning and the seats were refitted that afternoon but the car not driven till the next day.
If you wanted to speed the process up you could used a hair dryer between recolouring to dry quicker and complete the whole project in a day.