Leather Rear Seat Repair
Posted: Sun Mar 28, 2021 09:49
---THE PROBLEM, and a quick fix – surely? ---
A not uncommon problem with aging trims – Leather shrinkage and fragile / torn stitches across the top of the rear seat. Leather apparently still intact though. The car is a 91 Excel, technically I’m told NOT an SE, although it is one of the last to be made. The trim is similar to (same as?) the Celebration models, with full leather and the perforated leather centre panel.
Responding to requests for a more detailed description of my recent repair, I’ve put this thread together to detail the good, bad and the ugly, plus some things I learnt and would do differently if doing again. Hopefully you’ll find something of interest and relevance in the following, even if you don’t need to cure this particular problem,
So what to do?
Plan A : Remove from car, get some leather feed products, then hopefully draw gap back together with what I think would be called blind stitching ( The quick fix). I got a bottle of leather rejuvenator and leather clean from Leatherique and set to with the rejuvenator ( this was August last year, so you’ll soon see this has been a long journey – I was doing other things along the way though ). Fortunately you don’t need back seats to drive the car, or even get an MOT as it turns out, as long as the seat belts are in!
This product is wiped on or pour a little onto surface and rub in with fingers ( which I later realised was a better way to go, but more about that later), then leave for 24 hours to soak in, then repeat until it’s not getting drawn in any more.
Several days and applications later, I realised essentially this stuff was softening the surface leather colouring, turning it very sticky, but I wasn’t sure it was actually getting through and into the leather. In effect, it was initially a very expensive colour remover. Gradually though, larger areas were being exposed of the base leather with no applied surface colour, and the rejuvenator was starting to do what it’s designed for. It was here I realised the other method of working in with the fingers was more effective. You can tell when the rejuvenator is being drawn into the surface, as the surface darkens, then lightens some time later. Essentially, the surface colour acting as a barrier has gone and the surface is now porous.
After a couple of weeks, I was ready to try drawing the gap back in. Laced up some thread and very carefully started to tighten the thread.
Note the second from left stitch on the bottom row and how it has just torn out. This happen with very little tension in the thread and certainly no sign of the gap narrowing.
Conclusion : The leather fibres have lost all their strength and the leather is not going to re-stretch.
Time for plan B
A not uncommon problem with aging trims – Leather shrinkage and fragile / torn stitches across the top of the rear seat. Leather apparently still intact though. The car is a 91 Excel, technically I’m told NOT an SE, although it is one of the last to be made. The trim is similar to (same as?) the Celebration models, with full leather and the perforated leather centre panel.
Responding to requests for a more detailed description of my recent repair, I’ve put this thread together to detail the good, bad and the ugly, plus some things I learnt and would do differently if doing again. Hopefully you’ll find something of interest and relevance in the following, even if you don’t need to cure this particular problem,
So what to do?
Plan A : Remove from car, get some leather feed products, then hopefully draw gap back together with what I think would be called blind stitching ( The quick fix). I got a bottle of leather rejuvenator and leather clean from Leatherique and set to with the rejuvenator ( this was August last year, so you’ll soon see this has been a long journey – I was doing other things along the way though ). Fortunately you don’t need back seats to drive the car, or even get an MOT as it turns out, as long as the seat belts are in!
This product is wiped on or pour a little onto surface and rub in with fingers ( which I later realised was a better way to go, but more about that later), then leave for 24 hours to soak in, then repeat until it’s not getting drawn in any more.
Several days and applications later, I realised essentially this stuff was softening the surface leather colouring, turning it very sticky, but I wasn’t sure it was actually getting through and into the leather. In effect, it was initially a very expensive colour remover. Gradually though, larger areas were being exposed of the base leather with no applied surface colour, and the rejuvenator was starting to do what it’s designed for. It was here I realised the other method of working in with the fingers was more effective. You can tell when the rejuvenator is being drawn into the surface, as the surface darkens, then lightens some time later. Essentially, the surface colour acting as a barrier has gone and the surface is now porous.
After a couple of weeks, I was ready to try drawing the gap back in. Laced up some thread and very carefully started to tighten the thread.
Note the second from left stitch on the bottom row and how it has just torn out. This happen with very little tension in the thread and certainly no sign of the gap narrowing.
Conclusion : The leather fibres have lost all their strength and the leather is not going to re-stretch.
Time for plan B