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Corvette
C4 Forum
1988 Convertible for sunny day drives
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<blockquote data-quote="Tourmax" data-source="post: 175199" data-attributes="member: 5304"><p>My steering wheel was showing it's age. Only 120,000 kms on the car, but it seems the steering wheel was held mainly buy the upper portion.</p><p></p><p>The leather was still intact,but it looked like, well...... chit.</p><p></p><p>Faded, dirty and the leather was beginning to show the early signs of one day doing the full on split, tear and sloughing off the wheel completely.</p><p></p><p>Here's a pic where you can see it's more of a dull gray color than black:</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]30954[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>What you can't see is how the leather is worn and starting to show signs of cracking from decades of grubby little hands holding it and the sun drying/baking/beating the crap out of it. Just a mess overall.</p><p></p><p>I had considered stripping it and putting a new leather cover on it, but I figured I'd give it a go to try and make it look half decent and save myself the aggravation of trying to recover the wheel, at least for a few more years.</p><p></p><p>With nothing to loose, I thought I'd give a trick I'd learned many moons ago a try.</p><p></p><p>First, I took rubbing alcohol and gave the wheel a good cleaning to get decades of skin oil, dead skin build up, dirt - and gawd knows what else - off the wheel. The alcohol cleans the grubbiness off, pulls the skin oils up to the surface and helps open the pores of the leather for the next step.</p><p>Then you take a little lacquer thinner and wet down a white, lint free rag. You want white so it doesn't transfer any color to the leather wheel other than the color you want. The "lint free" part is self explanatory.</p><p>Then you take your spray leather dye and spray the rag over the lacquer thinner until its good and saturated. What you've just created is a nice, thinned down leather dye that will penetrate the leather, flow evenly and swell the leather back up to like it was prior to the sun (and oily hands) drying it out. You want your leather dye/paint thinned down so that when you put it on the wheel it penetrates the leather instead of sitting on the surface, where it can eventually wear, peel and flake off.</p><p></p><p>I then took my rag/solution and rubbed the wheel down. First application looked a little better. I let it dry and applied the solution several more times. After about 5 or so treatments, the wheel looks like this:</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]30955[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>Not too bad! It's not perfect, but it almost looks like a new wheel. A few more applications and it should look jammy! It was hard to get a picture of it that does it justice (because of the light shining into the garage through the door windows), so you'll have to take my word that it looks 10x better than it did.</p><p></p><p><img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /></p><p></p><p>The shine is all "natural". There's no product on the wheel except for my leather dye concoction. It needs a few more coats to get it good and smooth and an even coloring across the wheel. The top is still a little dull looking but you can tell it's going to come around witha few more applications. The leather just keeps soaking in that dye!</p><p></p><p>But, for an modest investment of time and effort, it should come around good enough to use for another 5-10 years.</p><p></p><p><img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tourmax, post: 175199, member: 5304"] My steering wheel was showing it's age. Only 120,000 kms on the car, but it seems the steering wheel was held mainly buy the upper portion. The leather was still intact,but it looked like, well...... chit. Faded, dirty and the leather was beginning to show the early signs of one day doing the full on split, tear and sloughing off the wheel completely. Here's a pic where you can see it's more of a dull gray color than black: [ATTACH type="full" alt="fr_4060_size880.jpg"]30954[/ATTACH] What you can't see is how the leather is worn and starting to show signs of cracking from decades of grubby little hands holding it and the sun drying/baking/beating the crap out of it. Just a mess overall. I had considered stripping it and putting a new leather cover on it, but I figured I'd give it a go to try and make it look half decent and save myself the aggravation of trying to recover the wheel, at least for a few more years. With nothing to loose, I thought I'd give a trick I'd learned many moons ago a try. First, I took rubbing alcohol and gave the wheel a good cleaning to get decades of skin oil, dead skin build up, dirt - and gawd knows what else - off the wheel. The alcohol cleans the grubbiness off, pulls the skin oils up to the surface and helps open the pores of the leather for the next step. Then you take a little lacquer thinner and wet down a white, lint free rag. You want white so it doesn't transfer any color to the leather wheel other than the color you want. The "lint free" part is self explanatory. Then you take your spray leather dye and spray the rag over the lacquer thinner until its good and saturated. What you've just created is a nice, thinned down leather dye that will penetrate the leather, flow evenly and swell the leather back up to like it was prior to the sun (and oily hands) drying it out. You want your leather dye/paint thinned down so that when you put it on the wheel it penetrates the leather instead of sitting on the surface, where it can eventually wear, peel and flake off. I then took my rag/solution and rubbed the wheel down. First application looked a little better. I let it dry and applied the solution several more times. After about 5 or so treatments, the wheel looks like this: [ATTACH type="full" alt="fr_4163_size880.jpg"]30955[/ATTACH] Not too bad! It's not perfect, but it almost looks like a new wheel. A few more applications and it should look jammy! It was hard to get a picture of it that does it justice (because of the light shining into the garage through the door windows), so you'll have to take my word that it looks 10x better than it did. ;) The shine is all "natural". There's no product on the wheel except for my leather dye concoction. It needs a few more coats to get it good and smooth and an even coloring across the wheel. The top is still a little dull looking but you can tell it's going to come around witha few more applications. The leather just keeps soaking in that dye! But, for an modest investment of time and effort, it should come around good enough to use for another 5-10 years. :) [/QUOTE]
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1988 Convertible for sunny day drives
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