Leather seats clean-up and repair While I'm waiting for the rest of the electric mirror parts, I thought I'd show my newest purchase and how I'm getting on with them. I've been looking for black leather seats for at least a year now and just hadn't found the right combination of condition, location and price. They all came together recently and so I purchased these: They were in pretty good condition overall considering their age. A bit of fading here and there, a little wear in places and one tear on the drivers seat bolster. Still, they were a good price and it was worth attempting a repair. I got them home and started the cleanup process. I used some APC and a good leather brush to scrub them clean before using leather cleaner. There was lots of grime that came off them. This is the drivers seat after cleaning. found an extra bonus along the way - they're heated leather.. This is the bolster damage I bought a leather repair kit from Furniture Clinic and set about repairing the tear and hiding some of that fading. First task was to clean the area and trim off any loose fibres Then I put some repair material behind the tear to give the leather something to bind to when you glue it I applied glue to the leather around the area to stick it back down as best I could Then using the flexible filler in layers, I filled in the gaps until it was flush with the surrounding area and then gave it a final sand down and a wipe over with IPA Next was to apply the leather colour dye using a sponge. This was done in 4-5 coats, dried in between with a heat gun. and then apply a sealant, in this case mixed 50:50 gloss and matt to give a satin finish I also recoloured the faded area on top of the bolster so that looks better too (sorry about the dodgy focus). I'm pretty pleased with the result. It's not perfect, but since it's on the outer part of the bolster it's not really an area you notice too much. These pictures were straight after the repair but a few days on it's really blended in with the rest of the seat. I've got a few other areas to touch up so I'll keep on with that. In the meantime I've sourced a genuine MK2 heated seat switch and a full MK3 heated seat loom from Germany so I'm waiting for delivery of those so I can test the heating on the seats. Hopefully the mirror glass will turn up soon so I can get those mirrors sorted too. I would be nice to have this all finished for GTI International.
Nice bud. Read a lot on these leather repair kits but was never sure, but yours seem to of come up a treat.
Electric mirrors fitted today. No pictures because they just look like the old mirrors! Wiring loom plumbed in to the fusebox ok, but it was a bit of a struggle feeding the two connectors through each door along with all the existing wiring. All working now though. There's a bit of play in the driver's side mirror hinge so I'm hoping that it won't wobble all over the place when I'm driving. I'll have to figure out if there's something I can adjust to tighten it up a bit. Not sure why I didn't notice that until I fitted them. Can't wait until Winter to test my heated mirrors! lol
its like a massive rivet inside the mirror so chances are youwont be able to do much to fix it. the good news is the housings are identical to manual ones so retrieve your old one and bin the manual adjuster out of it, swap all the electric gubbins over
Thanks John, doesn't seem to be wobbling all over the place as I drive around so I'll leave it for now plan to swap the housing over at some point.
Well what a complete dick I am. Stripped down the driver's seat base in order to fix the foam bolster and thought "hang on, why won't this seat tilt properly?". Because they're 5-door seats you tw*t! Can't believe I've gone this long without noticing either in the original ad, or when I collected them or when I was cleaning them.. Well that's buggered that then! I did take a good look to see if I could convert them to a tilt as some forums posts have suggested [that 5dr seats are the same as 3dr but without the cables], but there's only one tilt clip at the bottom and the other side is fixed, plus there's no internal handle for me to attach a cable to even if I wanted to. So I'm a little stuffed. I've considered trying to find some 90-spec seat frames and swap the backs over but its such a nasty job unhooking the covers from the frames that I just don't think I'd manage it without breaking or ripping something. Back to trawling the ads for 3dr front seats then I guess Still, on the plus side there'll be a lovely set of 5dr non-tilt black leather seats availble on the classifieds soon lol
aye the 90spec 5 door seats cant be converted to tilt unfortunately! its not as bad as you think, fiddly but not so bad really. If you can strip the bases down then the backrests aint much more effort, some hog rings, wires and the headrest clips (use a 13-15mm socket boshed over the bottom clip to release)
oh and you could use mk3 gofl leather seat backs on your bases if thats easier, or even the mk3 colour concept leather recaro backrests the mk3 recaro bases are basically the same shape as 90spec/mk3 GTI bases so you cant really tell
I've got some 90spec seat based from a 3 door. Better still if you could get a tatty set of 3 door seats. It's easy to do, even I managed it!!! lol lol http://www.clubgti.com/showthread.php?277053-Passenger-seat-as-drivers-seat-in-a-Mk2
Thanks Ian, saw your thread before and you made it look easy - tried it myself on a crappy seat here as a test and it was a bloody nightmare! Not sure if I want to risk tearing the leather cover but it's probably tougher than the fabric anyway. John, are the MK3 backs the same as 90-spec MK2 in general then? Could I use a MK3 3dr back frame with my covers on? Think I need to put a wanted ad up in the classifieds for 90-spec 3dr seat backs that I can strip down.
they arnt the same, but they do fit. very similar in shape the main difference is the headrest, the mk3 ones are more tapered. They are a bit different internally so im not sure if the covers would swap? they're so close in look though i dont think you would need to bother: the mk3 recaro seats are a bit of a strange one, the seat base looks similar to a normal GTI seat but the backrest has the proper recaro shape to it. the backrest is different to the earlier mk2/aftermarket type recaro seats in that the tilt legs are longer (so fit 90spec mk2 and normal mk3 seat bases) plus the headrests arnt the same shape or fitment:
Right, overdue an update I think. Due to my cock-up with my 5-door seats trying to fit into a 3-door car, I had to find some 90-spec 3-door seats with the tilt backs and swap the covers over. This wasn't as bad as I feared, no point in posting pictures as it's the same as in Ian's thread above. While the seats were apart I decided to test the heating elements by feeding 12v directly to the pads. All of them worked perfectly ... apart from the driver's seat base. There was a break in continuity somewhere but in order to find it I had to remove the seat base cover completely. What a b**tard job that is! Hog rings buried everywhere, really difficult to get access to them and they were all very hard to pull apart. Once the cover was off I had to track down the breaks in the heating element. There were a couple of brown areas where the wiring had obviously overheated so I cut around the material to reveal the wiring so I could patch in a repair piece. I just used some teflon coated wire I had lying around, soldered it to the cut ends of the heating element wiring and covered the repair with heatshrink. I made sure the pad got nice and hot before fitting the cover back on to the seat. I resprayed all of the seats - fronts and rears - and my steering wheel. It was quite a long-winded process. I've documented it all on the Furniture Clinic website - mainly because there's a chance of free stuff if enough people like my work! Take a look here if you're interested: http://www.furnitureclinic.co.uk/go...ng-wheel-repair-and-refurbish.php?like=1#like These are the results of the refubishment on the front seats: Next step was to fit everything back into the car. I removed the old interior and installed the wiring for the heated seats. I didn't bother resraying the door cards as they weren't too bad, and by this time I was sick of spraying leather. Final pictures of the interior back together: I'm really pleased with the result and the car is now at the spec that I wanted - Oak Green, Air Con, Black Heated Leather. Next up are the brakes (G60 fronts) and then the engine (2.0L 9A) but it's not something I need to rush - I'm quite happy driving it around as it is for now.
looks lovely mate, you've done a real nice job there. not sure I'd have the patience! got a leather wheel coming so maybe I'll try it, or maybe I'll just bung it in
Thanks John, yes it did become a bit of an ordeal. The only reason I did the steering wheel was because I had stuff left over from the seats, plus I cleaned the it a couple of months back and a load of the colour came off! Must have been a dodgy refurb by the last owner. If you were just doing the steering wheel (not the whole interior) it's probably cheaper to have someone do it for you rather than buy all the kit.
I'm amazed at how well the seats have come up. I've looked at those kits before but always been a it dubious but seeing that is enough to convince me that it's time to get cracking on my seats! Which bits did you get from furniture clinic? Was it a kit?
Yep, "Leather Colourant Kit" - the large one in my case. Also a repair kit to fix the tear. They have discount codes on every now and again so might be worth keeping your eye out if you're interested.
Thanks. How thick is the colourant when you put it on? I'm wondering whether its worth getting some filler for the deeper creases. I've got a couple of scuffs as well so it's probably a good idea.
