The complete interior restoration

That looks like a very dark red. Is that factory?

 

Wishing you all the best with your restoration. My son and I are about 80% through with ours. We are doing the same thing, except no color change.

The Leatherique stuff is fantastic. Works every bit as good as they advertise. It's also a fairly easy and intuitive process.

The only advice I have for you is:

1. Take it slow and easy. You'll enjoy the process.
2. When striping the old finish, make sure you are in a well ventilated area. That leather stripper is nasty.
3. We used (are using) an airbrush to put on the new color. This is probably slower than brushing or wiping, as we only apply a light coat of dye, then wait for drying, then another light coat. With our color, it's taking 4 to 5 coats to provide a uniform color.
4. Not really advice, but just a word on results. The back seats were in good shape to begin with, no rips, tears, abrasions, etc. They now look and feel as good (or better) than new. The front seat had a couple of tears, holes and lots of abrasions. I used the Leatherique crack filler to fill the holes and abrasions. This works well, however, the repaired seats don't look quite as good as the back seats. I'd say the front seats look about 85 to 90% good as new - which is a HUGE, HUGE improvement over their previous condition. To put it another way - the back seats look good from inches away. The front seats look good from a couple of feet away - from 2 feet they look brand new, but up close you can see the repairs.


Anyway, it's hard to describe how great it feels to see leather returning to life!!! a very rewarding experience.

Good luck, and I hope you enjoy the process as much as we have.

Sid

 

Rodney, just refinished mine this past summer, it turned out fantastic, love the car now. I did the disassembly, stripping and reassembly. I let the professionals do the re-dye. Good luck and keep posting pictures of the progress.
Andy

 

I want your interior!

I don't like my black interior and intend to change mine when I get home in the spring.

Keep up the good work. I look forward to the results

 

The car seems to be silver or grey from your pictures ?

Its just my opinion , but if it is the colour - stick with the red or go black .. those combinations are stunning . For me , tan does not work with silver or grey .

 

Nice work Rodney!
I would stay with red personally. It fits the black and grigio colors very well and they are very much wanted since there aren't many around espcially Mondial 8s (If you ever would sell). I think your black Mondi will have a more bad ass look with red then tan, just my opinion.

But go with any color you like as you need to sit inside and enjoy the inside view while driving .

When I was looking for a Mondial I saw, the one that I have now, for sale and only had pictures. Honestly.. I wouldn't to be found dead in it. The red was just jumping out the car so bright. Still decided to look and could always paint it black. Arrived at the scene and I my opinion changed 180 degrees. The pics where overlighted giving the Mondi interior a horrible look. The color is very refined. You are almost bathing in very good wine

 

The headrest are held in place by a hairpin style clip. You need to find thin tubing to slide it around the rod. Here are pics.

I hope this helps!
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Rodney, I know the feeling about layers of old stain, my front seats took me the better part of 3 full days to strip each of the seats (6 days total). The last layer was a water based product that was almost like wax. Part of the reason it took me so much time to do my stripping (6 weeks) is that I used a tooth brush as the final pass over all the leather. This got down into the grain of the leather and made it look like leather again.
Post pictures as you progress, we all love to see progress.
Andy

 

Nice work - pls keep posting your progress in pics -

 

This will give you an idea of the amount of newspaper and tape for the dash area. I also left the door panels and console in based upon the suggestion of the company doing the re-dye. Sure made life a lot easier on my part. The last pic is the finished product.

Andy
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Love the mats. Where did you get those?