The Lotus Grand Tourers

---Intro ---

Having spent the winter making the interior of my 92 Excel a nicer place to be, see my Interior Update thread link below, I thought it would be a good time to write down my experience with the leather repairs and re-colour. What was good. bad or indifferent and what if anything I’d do differently if I ever did this again.
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There are a number of different suppliers out there who offer full kits. I went down the Furniture Clinic route. Don’t know why, just did. Their products finish the leather by applying a clear coat kind of sealing lacquer, which is apparently how most modern car leathers are finished. I believe there are other systems out there that allow Balms and the like to still penetrate into the leather, but I’ve not investigated this further.
I’ll keep this thread to the work of repairing torn or scuffed leather and re-colouring. Along the way I did more invasive bespoke repairs particularly to the rear seat which I have previously summarised here : xxxx

---Furniture Clinic Kit ---

I spent a good sum of money with FC, around £170, receiving the following in return
• Prep material
o Leather Prep - 500ml (not enough - read on)
o Alcohol cleaner - 500ml
• Repair material
o Glue PU : 50ml
o Linen material
o Leather Binder – 250ml
o Heavy Filler : 50ml
o Flexifill : 50ml
• Colour and sealers
o Colour matched finish : Lotus Gold – 3 x 500 ml
o Leather Finisher : Matt – 2x 250ml ( barely enough)
o Leather finisher : Gloss – 2x 250ml ( Barely enough)
o CrossLink Eco – 4 x 15ml ( not enough)
• Tools / Equipment
o Scotch pads and Cotton buds (you’ll need more)
o Strong rubber gloves – 1 Pair (you’ll need more ! )
o Spatula
o Airbrush ( very good )
o Airbrush propellant – 4 x 400ml ( not used, read on)

--- First Steps – Strip down--

You COULD re-colour and do a half decent job without removing much from the car, but for me, the only way to do a proper job is to remove everything, then where you can, dismantle the panels as far as possible. Examples would be the speaker grill in the rear quarter. It’s retained with split pins and washers. With care, the pins can be opened, panels removed, refinished, then the same pins re-used on re-assembly. Caution though that if the pins break, you can only change by removing the leather !! - Fortunately, none of mine broke.


--- Prep materials---

Used for removing old finishes. I maybe went a bit over the top, deciding that as the car had been re-coloured previously I would take the majority , if not all of this off. I don’t like the idea of putting new finishes on what may be several layers of dodgy base. In the end, it became difficult to distinguish between past additions and the base colour laid down when new. I have to admit to spending hours with a scotch pad wrapped around 4 buds of cotton wool, soaked in Leather prep, scrubbing, then wiping off with a cloth ( I found old towels good for wiping off softened colour gunk). Be warned. To start with the old surface colour softens then starts to look a real mess and you wonder what you’ve done. Stick with it though, wiping the old colour off regularly, and eventually you see the surface darken as the base leather starts to absorb the leather Prep. I found area’s that have not been exposed to light still had the factory colour bonding very well. You can shift it if you really want to, but I didn’t bother fully removing in these areas. Photo below is the near side rear quarter panel. You can see at the bottom the original factory colouring, above it is an area back to the raw leather (gone dark with absorption, but dries out as the Prep evaporates). Above this is area (and to the right) colour surface still to be removed.


Oh yes. That photo reminds me. Buy a couple of extra pairs of good rubber gloves. Removing these finishes is a really messy job and with all the rubbing / finger pressure, the finger tips will eventually tear through..
Leather Prep : This is the main solvent used for removing previous finishes – and 500ml just ain’t enough !! You could get through 500ml just doing one seat properly. Fortunately I worked out quite early on that Cellulose thinners is just as effective ! I bought 5 litres of Brush cleaner CT off Ebay – and used it all !!
Scotch pads : The kit came with 2 pads. Once they get a bit clogged, they lose there effectiveness. I bought a pack of 10 from Ebay, but go for good quality. Cheap stuff from Poundland is useless. I found out the hard way, but surprising enough the lesson only cost me £1. !!!!
Cotton wool buds : Again, you’ll need far more than FC provide in the kit. I bought a bag of 100. These you can buy confidently from Poundland.

A trick for stitched areas:
If you rub that scotch pad on any stitched areas with any purpose, you’ll fray the stitching fibres, example in photo below:


Early on, I started using a nail brush, wetting with thinners (pour thinners into a dish and keep dipping bristles in). You can now rub vigorously, without damage to the threads. This same technique worked well on the perforated leather, cleaning out the perforations better ( the scotch pad tends to wipe the colour off the surface and fill the perforations unless you really wet the work area – Probably not good for the leather in the long run.

--- Torn / damaged leather repairs---

I followed the standard instructions and it just works. The glue you get looks and feels like PVA wood glue. It may well be, but as this is the foundation for all the remaining work, you mighty as well use recognised product. The linen is just an off cut from bed linen, nothing special. My drivers seat was in for the main area of attention for repairs, with before, after filling / smoothing and after colouring shots below.
Before :


After filling and smoothing:


After colour finishing and sealant:


After gluing a patch to the rear of the leather, I used the heavy filler, in very thin layers, gradually building up. They supply a couple of packets of 1200 wet’n’dry, to sand the filler back, but I found it difficult to sand. By building up slowly, I avoided the need to remove thick areas with the abrasive paper. Note the kit also had a filler called Fexifil, but it’s very similar to the heavy filler, just much less viscous and as a result, it never stayed where I wanted it. In the end, I just used the Heavy Filler everywhere, including lightly cracked areas.
The kit also included 250 ml of Leather binder, which was just like a UPVA binding agent – it has the viscosity of water !. It’s meant for scuffs and cracking, being applied by sponge. I used less than 50ml of this stuff. - Never really worked out what it was doing after the first wipe down, but maybe it was just the type of repairs I needed.

--- Before colouring---

I deviated from the FC destructions at this point. Having at times given the leather quite a soaking in Cellulose thinners, I thought it would be a good idea to feed the base leather with some genuine nutrients. Much earlier, I’d bought two products from Leatherique, so after giving the leather at least 3 days for any thinners to fully evaporate, I applied several feeds of the rejuventor ( until it stopped soaking into the leather).

-- Applying the colour---

You’ll read about sponging the colour on, at least for the first coat, but I found no reason just to go straight to the Air Brush application. The only sponge pre-application I did was on the filled areas on the seat bolster.
The kit came with a decent little Air brush and 4 cans of propellant. There are warnings that the propellant may freeze as you spray, with suggestions about putting in a bucket of water to help mitigate. As it freezes, the pressure reduces with consequential changes to the spray pattern. I found I couldn’t do more than half a seat back before I was losing pressure. – Save yourself the agro and use a compressor – hire it if you have to, but if you are doing anything more than a seat, don’t use the cans of propellant. You will need an M5 Fine (0.5mm pitch) male to 1/8 or ¼ BSP adaptor to plug the Air brush to a compressor but available from Ebay.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/350773474361

– Anyone want to by 3 and a half cans of propellant ? ?????

The colour was matched by FC to a sample I sent from under the centre console. They supply 3 x 500ml bottles for a full car, which is the right quantity for an Excel with full leather interior. I applied on average 3 coats, and I will have used 1250ml by the time I finish the dash.
The colour is quite viscous and does not need thinning. It sprays nicely at about 25 Psi. Unless you are really ham fisted, you won’t suffer with runs, but even if you do, a dab with a sponge removes the evidence.

--- Applying the finish---

FC supply 500ml of gloss and 500ml of matt sealant with instructions to mix at different ratios depending on what finish you want ( Gloss / Semi Gloss / Satin / Semi Matt / Matt). I chose to do a first coat in gloss (FC told me a straight gloss seals the colour and would result in a slightly lighter final finish), then a 2:1 mix ( heavier on the Matt) so my finish is half way between Satin and Semi Matt. Also supplied was 4 off 15ml containers of “cross link eco” which is a kind of hardener / activator for the sealant, used at a ratio of 1:8 approx. If you have a calculator handy, you will quickly realise that 4 vials is not enough if you are using a total of 1000ml of sealant !. The other thing is that I mixed up 100ml of sealant at a go (90ml sealant and 11ml Cross link). – The 4ml left in the container goes hard after about 5 days ( once exposed to the air) so I ended up throwing this away !. Next time, I’d find a container to pre mix 140ml (125ml sealant, 15ml Cross link).
This sealant is also a lot thinner than the colour – viscosity of water !!. I reduced the spray pressure to 20 psi, but it is still easy to get runs. Fortunately they can be dabbed lightly with a sponge to remove, but the best technique I found was just to move the spray quickly, dry with a hair dryer and then do another coat. I had no problems with the part used spray in the air brush being left for at least 5 minutes before being used again.

--- Learnings---

As commented earlier, I spent probably around £250 in total on this reconditioning work, but IMO, the end result was great value for money. It has transformed the inside of the car and was well worth every penny.
To close, a summary of learning’s that would mainly have saved time / money had I gone this route initially:
• Buy the air brush but don’t bother with the propellant
• If your doing a full car, but bulk Cellulose thinners and forget about buying cleaners and preps from FC.
• Buy the leather repairs kit and heavy filler then use in very thin layers. Buying the other fillers wouldn’t add much to the overall bill, but I didn’t find them necessary.
• 1500 ml ( 3 x 500) is correct volume of colour for a full leather interior
• Get the same volume of Leather finisher ( 1500ml). The kit I got only had 1000ml and I will be buying more before I finish the Dash.
• Get the correct number of 15ml vials of the cross link stabilizer ( approx 12 if you go for 1500 ml of finish), then mix up so you use each 15ml vial in one session.

--- Next steps-The dash panel -----

I’m still to do my dash panel and A posts. Not sure yet if I will remove it, or strip down as far as possible in the car and leave in position and mask. I’ll post an update when I do it, but don’t expect to see anything for a while. I really ought to get on with the Elite.

Tony

Nice write up Tony - will be useful when I get to those repairs....

Neil.

Great write-up Tony.

So if (like me) you just had the usual superficial scuffs on the drivers seat (side) bolster with no rips/tears, and the rest of the seat was fine, which products would you use to fix (filler/colour etc) - and could you just get away with treating it locally (ie not refinish the whole seat)?

Brilliant write-up Tony. Needs to be a sticky! Or a copy in the technical section as well.

Pete

Wow thanks, super write-up...

I did also my interior. Luckily it was black, so that was a lot easier.. and there were no ripping or big cracks.
One thing which is important is to feed the leather to make and keep it soft. Otherwise you will get again cracks in the repairs especially after a hot summer.
I also took off all the leather to restore the cushions underneath and clean them.
For me isopropanol was a good product to clean and disinfect the leather/cushions.

Regards Curt