Re: Interior swap / black leather questions

["Smith, Kirby A" <kirby.a.smith@lmco.com>]

Craig (AudiJeep@aol.com) wrote

  Also, to anybody out there with black leather, how does it wear (i.e
  fading from sun, etc). Thanks.

Both my 88s have black leather.  Neither showed much sun fading, if any,
but I didn't see the cars new.  (Its possible the seats were supposed to
be Navy, but the plastic parts of the interior were black, so I used
black.)  There were some scratches, and significant wear on the driver's
side left seat bolster.  These were repaired with leather dye bought
from a shoe repair business.  This dye is _very_ black, and contains
alcohol and MEK.  I diluted it considerably to avoid contrast problems
with the seat leather, and deployed it over the entire seats with a rag,
with emphasis on the scratched/worn (whitish) areas.  Any excess can be
cleaned up with denatured (ethyl) alcohol.  After the dye dried, I used
Connoly Hide Food on the leather (Lexol or Zymol should be equivalent
for this purpose).  This should be allowed to soak in and then the
excess wiped off with a cloth the next day.  There was some slight black
transfer onto the white cloth, so seat wiping is needed to minimize dye
transfer to clothes, but the result is worth it.

         ....  Kirby  (kirby.a.smith@lmco.com)
                   New Hampshire, USA
                      2 X 1988 90q