john keefe wrote: ↑Tue Jul 14, 2020 12:40 pm
Wow, that looks like its all in really nice condition.
Complete except for one door card kick/shoe carpet. Dash is perfect.
Junk yard pull many years ago (not by me; the "puller" moved on from Merking and offered it free). Little discernible wear but a fee cigar/ette light burn marks on driver's seat and one small burn through hole in rear seat (easy repair). All the result of I assume the accident that brought that Scrapio to the JY.
$700 for the lot picked up (e.g. could bring to Carlisle if prepaid).
YMMV
Descartes: "Cogito Ergo Sum"
Lijewski: "Sum Ergo Drive-O. Mucho!
An auto-upholstery shop near me said there's no substitute for leather once it's UV or heat damaged (not what I wanted to hear). Once the cells/fibers are damaged, that's it. But if I wanted something to last for a couple years, maybe more if the car was protected from any more sun damage, then to look at this: https://www.leathermagic.com/do-repair-kits-work/
Never done any leather repair, but seems some good info in the intro, and at least they explained the one thing I knew about "leather repair kits:" the filler hardens, and pulls on the damaged surrounding leather, making the repair area worse. I doubt anything would work on cracked perforated leather. But, I might be tempted to spend a little to fix the bolsters. I'm routinely rubbing in Lexol re-conditioner, and its made the dried rear seat leather tops more supple, at least enough to prevent further separation at the seams.
Kinda' like the idea of mixing-and-matching interiors. Friend of ours bought a new Subaru Forester, and gotta' say the two-toned black-on-saddle-leather combo looks really nice. Don't know how mixing raven and spice could work out, but it would be interesting. Raven dash, door cards, floors, window pillars? Anyone done that? Pics?
PeterP11c wrote: ↑Tue Jul 14, 2020 2:06 pm
I saw some clips on Youtube with leather restoration products and techniques. Laughable to say the least. Ageing process affects the entire depth of the leather and sanding off won't help. Chemical reactions involving breakdown of molecules are irreversible, thus breaking and peeling occurs. Cleaning and moisturizing works as long as the leather stays intact, then it's time to replace it anyway. Good luck with sanding but be mindful of the risks involved.
I disagree to some extent. I have easily restored dry leather that is not coated. Examples would be used "Brooks" bicycle saddles, leather travel bags etc... The natural leather can easily absorb the restorative product.
The Scorpio leather is painted "Raven" with some sort of coating (something with vinyl in it maybe?). In my experience this is what has sustained the UV damage and has become hard and cracked. In addition, this coating acts as a barrier for any leather restorative product reaching the underlying leather.
This week, I applied Meguiar's Leather Care over the entire seating area. Yes, the leather surface is covered by some form of a coating as I observed lower absorbance level in comparison to my other car. But looking closer at front seats, there are two types of wear: cracked through on seating cushions and worn out patches on lower sides of lumbar support. I don't see how any product can fix such damage.
I thought it might be a good idea to perform some experiments on the leather that I removed from my center console armrest.
What sort of unconventional treatments could I apply to this hard, cracked, and worn piece of leather?
The first experiment was rubbing in acetone. Results are quite unexpected. It actually softened up the leather. But I'd like to wait a while for it to fully evaporate in order see if it regresses and hardens back up. Of course this does not address cracked leather, we are only talking about hardened leather here. But I believe hardened leather leads to loss of pliability an ultimately to irrevocable cracked leather...
The next step is to try Rear Main Stop Leak. Let me explain...
When I acquired my Scorpio back in late 2015 it had an oil leak. I added UV dye to the oil and determined that the distributor O-ring had failed. I pulled out the distributor and replaced the O-ring. The old O-ring was brittle and broke into several pieces.
At the same time I was reading some good reviews regarding "ATP AT-205" stop leak. With the car being about 28 years old..I decided it would be a good idea to run a bottle of this stuff in the crank case for about 2-3 weeks before my next oil change. Which I did.
I had a little left over and I wanted to do a test to see if this stuff really works. So I took the crumbling remnants of my distributor O-ring and put them in a vial of this AT-205 stuff and let it sit for a couple of weeks on the hot water heater.
I was blown away when I later extracted the pieces. They were soft and pliable again! And it was not like they were swelled up or anything...they truly were restored. So I did a little research on the web and found that the the main ingredient of these stop leaks is typically some variant of poly-ethyl-gylcols. These are plasticizers originally used to to formulate "soft" polymers.
So I think i want to try this on the leather to see what it does. I might even mix it with some acetone. That might help it get into the leather better...
Sounds very enticing but knowing my knack for getting in trouble with Scorpio, I doubt if I will try these on my front seats. Sort of got used to the idea of getting new ones and accepted the associated cost. Thanks for the update, though. If I could devise a fast drying formula for my floor liner, I would be a happy man. It soaked up some much coolant in the past that top layer became brittle and began to crack. Oh, well, like Kipling said: it's another story.
Ed Lijewski wrote: ↑Tue Jul 14, 2020 2:18 pm
Leatherique's two-step process supposedly works to bring some suppleness back. A few Merkats have used it...Bart Dyshuk and possibly Ron Hofmann Sr. inter alia...and were satisfied with the results. Expensive though.
-Coach Handbag brand liquid conditioner (I used my Moms little bottle on my wallet)
-Lexol Boot Leather Conditioner (used on boots to soften leather)
-Baseball Glove Conditioner
-Mink Oil (Walmart brand "Brahman" used on my boots)
OR just use the Mothers/Mequiars stuff. Probably similar to other leather conditioners but made for seats, so it won't change the color much or get on your clothes. Seems like something really strong would take out the natural oils and leave it dry.
andyofcolumbusmerkur wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2020 7:13 pm
-Coach Handbag brand liquid conditioner (I used my Moms little bottle on my wallet)
-Lexol Boot Leather Conditioner (used on boots to soften leather)
-Baseball Glove Conditioner
-Mink Oil (Walmart brand "Brahman" used on my boots)
OR just use the Mothers/Mequiars stuff. Probably similar to other leather conditioners but made for seats, so it won't change the color much or get on your clothes. Seems like something really strong would take out the natural oils and leave it dry.
Those products work fine for natural, uncoated leather, like baseball gloves, saddles, and handbags.
None of those products will soften old, hardened Scorpio Leather. I have tried them all. Read the Leathertique pdf that I linked. It will explain the problem to you. Its not the leather at issue but the polymer color coating on the leather surface that has hardened with age.
None of those products can restore the hardened polymer coating back to it's original suppleness. All you end up with is greasy or oily (but still hard) Scorpio leather.
Interesting on the acetone... makes sense it does a great job in dissolving the polymers and FG resins. Nasty stuff to get on your hands long term, though. Let us know what happens when it all wicks out. I wonder if at that point (if it has softened the coating sufficiently) light sanding would work to break down the rest, and provide more cell surface to penetrate to the main fibers below. At least in the Leathermagic site, they advise sanding, partly to soften up but also to increase adhesion of the flexible poly.
Wonder if the AT-205 will stain. I've read/heard of ATF fluid in general being great for renewing O-rings, door seals, grommets, etc.. I was even thinking of doing the same kind of immersion test on the Scorpio's sunroof seal.
Mink oil is great for winter wear, but it will stain. Used to upkeep ski racing gloves with lanolin cream, then let them sit in front of the fireplace at night. Worked great. Then again, anything which delayed having to stitch them up repeatedly was good. We were all eating packets of ketchup and condiments from the resorts' cafeterias for "lunch," sometimes dinner. So, buying Lexol-anything was out of the question back then.
brokencase wrote: ↑Sat Jul 11, 2020 7:42 pm
Looks good..but I like Raven better...
I like the raven better if only because all of the things match, or are at least close. The much darker dash in both the XRs and apparently Scorpios bother me. But I do like the tan leather with black cars as a general rule. Our Acura RDX has a light tan leather interior to go with the almost Mazda red paint and olive wood trim. Looks pretty sharp.
David Reese
88 XR4Ti - mono white T5, someday to be bi wing
89 Scorpio - waiting on some parts before it hits the road again
88 XR4Ti - mono red C3, parts car
used to own 86 dark blue traded in on a min van, what was I thinking?
I did another test. I made a mix of 50/50 acetone and the AT-205 reseal. I then brushed this onto the leather I pulled off the console.
I did a 2 inch square area and let it sit on there for about 10-15 minutes and then wiped it off.
The leather definitely feels softer. But again I think I want to let this sit for a few days to let it fully dry to see if it remains soft or starts to harden up again - OR if there any other negative side effects.
Anyone done that? Pics?
