348 Interior Re-dye

Hello fellow f-chatters! I've been lurking in the internet shadows for a few months...well, more like actually enjoying my car...but I figured it was time to do something productive and fix the most annoying thing to me about my car--my interior. I have been researching the re-dye process for months and decided to take the plunge. I've planned about 3 weeks to get it completed, but I think I'll get it done a bit quicker...kick back, pour yourself three fingers of whiskey and enjoy!!!

- I am using Leatherique for this re-dye. Go to their website and read the re-dye writeup done my Mike Charness. This is the basis for my project. However, I am doing all the leather in the car and not just the seats. There are a few helpful videos on YouTube about re-dying, but overall F-chat and the Leatherique website had the most complete source of information. Their instructions are very detailed, and their staff is knowledgeable.

- My leather has been previously re-dyed. It was in need of serious attention and had faded unevenly throughout the car. In some areas the dye had turned a weird kinda yellow that I seriously disliked. So far nothing that I have done is "hard." But it does take a serious level of patience and lots and lots and lots of scrubbing!

- So far I have spent about $250 on all of my supplies for the project. You need the dye, rejuvinator oil, cleaner, prepping solution, dye, lacquer thinner, and towels. You will also need either a spray gun or an airbrush. Blotting, or using a brush is not generally recommended for our seats. I am going to experiment with this a bit and let you know what works for me.

- I started by applying the rejuvinator oil throughout the entire car. I did this over the weekend allowing it to bake in my Georgia hot garage for 24 hrs, then re-applied it the next day. In all, it sat for about 50 hours with two full applications on every piece of leather.
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

- After the 50 hours I started taking out the seats and removing the trim pieces. Seats came out fairly easy, but make sure you are not trying to remove the hex bolts at an angle. They strip out very very easily.

- Most of the trip is put together by screws that I made mince meat of with my drill I love power tools

- I still need to remove the emergency brake covers. You will need to use a dremel to enlarge the opening on the rear lid release lever to remove the cable. I haven't done this yet and will take a pic of this for you tomorrow. This will save you lots of headache!

- I am going to take the opportunity to clean all the carpets and may even consider re-dying them as well, though I am hesitant to do so because of the "plasticky" feel that they can develop. Anyone have any good real-world experience with this?
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

- Most of the trim has been removed. I am going to remove the dash when it's time to actually work on it. Most pieces are either held on with a screw or covered up by a plastic cap that hides a screw.
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

- After removing all of the trim I began using the pristine cleaner on the pieces. I really focused on the seats as they have the most amount of dirt on them. I purchased some scrub brushes at WalMart and they worked great. It's pretty awesome to see how much dirt actually comes off of the seats.

- There was a noticeable difference in feel of the leather after cleaning the seats.

- If you can see from the second picture there is some serious fading that has happened on the seats. This happened because the darker area is covered by a trim piece.
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

- As I mentioned the interior has been dyed before. The previous person had dug out a bit of the foam in the back seat so that you can remove the cotter pins and separate the headrest. I was glad that this was done because I would have done the exact same thing. You really need to separate all of the parts to do the job right.

- If you look at the seat you can see even from just the cleaning how nice it looks. This is the passenger seat that had less wear, but even my wife noticed how nice the seats looked just after being cleaned/conditioned.

- The next step is to remove all of the old dye.....get up for it!
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

- I started with the headrest first to practice and refine my technique for cleaning. I would pour some lacquer thinner in a container and then dip my rag into it and begin to scrub. You will need to rotate the rage very quickly at first because it will literally be caked with old dye. If you don't all you do is smear the old dye around.

Dip, clean, rotate, dip, clean, scrub, again...and again...and again. Eventually you will be left with the bare, original leather. While not hard work, you need to be patient! Get in all the cracks and folds of the leather. As you already know....prep work is the key to success!

- Look at the difference after it's stripped. Soooooo purdy!
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

- Once I got the headrests done I moved on to the interior pieces. I am saving the seats for last because they are going to take foreverrrrrrrrrr. The interior pieces go pretty quickly mainly because they are flat and are mounted to hard covers that make it easy to lay down and scrub.

- Only like 200 more to go. I turned on a movie this evening and went to town. My wife wasn't too keen on the smell of lacquer in the house, but she loves me

- I'll be stripping the interior pieces for the next few days. After all the pieces are stripped I will wet sand them with 800 grit paper using the prepping agent. Then it's on to another round of rejuvenator oil and cleaner...let them sit for a few days to soak in all the oil they can. Then dye them.
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

- I started today by removing the trunk lid cable to allow me to separate the emergency brake trim. I used a dremel to enlarge the hole and allow the cable to slide out. This was the only way that I saw to separate it without cutting the cable and then having to re-crimp it etc. The only thing I'm concerned about is that the lid cable pressure will now need to be adjusted since there is tension placed on the opening when the latch is opened. But I'll cross that bridge when I get there. Had to separate it.
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

- With the latch separated I then cleaned up the opening and viola...removed the trim. Don't freak out...it wasn't that dirty before, but me sweating like a hog and metal shaving bits all over the place it made for a bit of a mess.
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

- The e brake trim removed
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

- If your seats have been re-dyed at some point then after your first wipe they will look something like this. You can see where the old dye (paint??) comes off and you are left with the original color.

**Big note here is I found that if you keep scrubbing you will get rid of the original dye and get the leather back to its original non dyed color. I was a little aggressive on some pieces and got it to this. That is not necessary and may result in me needing to put a few more coats of dye to even out the color later on.

That's all for today. I'm keeping on keeping on. It's a slow process, but I am doing a few pieces a day to spread it out.
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

And you thought I had given up on my project didn't you all!!
Well...it's slow moving when you have to work after the kids go to bed, but I am making great progress. Below is the picture of the seats dissembled. Do not attempt to do this project without separating the seats. It takes 5 minutes and your ability to evenly sand and spray the die will be much much better.


--The thing I want to point out is that you DO NOT need to take all of the existing die off of the seat. You can see that in some places the seats are taken down to the bare leather and in other the factory Ferrari dye is still on the seats. As long as you take off any previous dye job material you will be fine. I spoke to Leatherique about this three separate times as well as went to a leather workshop in town to verify this information. Save yourself hours of extra work and just take off the re-dye coats and clean up the seats as appropriate.
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

-After you have cleaned off all the non original dye from the parts you need to wet sand everything with the prepping agent. This will leave the leather very very smooth. Do not sand so hard that you turn anything into suede, and I highly recommend you use a bare hand because you will know exactly when it is smooth enough for you to move on. I was very very impressed with how the wet sanding left the leather.

-I am just about done wet sanding all the interior. After this I will finish the seats, give everything one more dose of rejuivinator and cleaning then off to paint.

- I'm on track to be done in about a week and a half.

More pics to come.
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

- I can't emphasize enough, if you look in my pics you will see that some parts have been taken down to the bare leather and others haven't. This will NOT affect your final product. Accept that you will strip more off in some places than in other. The most important part is that you wet sand everything to a smoooooottthhhhh finish with the prepping agent in preparation for the final round of rejuvinator/cleaning and then spraying. Make sure to let everything dry for at least two days before you spray the dye.

 

The final pieces to finish are on the dash. I was going to remove the dash but found this to be wayyyy too complicated so I will be cleaning and re-spraying them inside the car. Obviously a thorough masking of the area is critical to prevent overspray. Additionally, to minimize how much color I have to put on the dash I cleaned off the "re-dye" coating and attempted to preserve the original color as much as possible.
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Small things like broken or missing clips really bother me and show a serious lack of pride in a job from a previous "technician" so I ordered a new set of clips for both the drivers and passengers side door trim ($.90 each). Do it right...and make it new. You are so close to being done...don't skimp!

Part #14188181

On that note when you remove the bolts for the seats it is very easy to potentially strip out the head so be careful. If you nick one up removing it...get a new one! Make the life of the next person easy by spending the $.90 to make it perfect.
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

After going through the full rejuvinator and cleaning process (5 days dry time) I cleaned every part with Isopropyl Alcohol to make sure they are 100% clean of any debris. This technique was recommended to me by the folks at Leatherique and I took them up on it. I am letting everything sit for another 48 hours to ensure they are absolutely dry. I live in Georgia and it is humid as a mother .... so I want the parts to be dry before I spray them.
Image Unavailable, Please Login