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The new carbon steering wheel is now fitted, & I must say it does look good. It feels so much better than the stock steering wheel. Money well spent. Here is a before and after picture.

Got a few new additions since my last post so just sharing :-) Carbon wrapped door sills, side mirrors and side interior wings near gear selector. Yes there was a few slight air bubbles but since fixed it up :-) Also installed the GROM Vline V2 to override our outdated Satnav setup Installed side skirts, front lip and carbon apron spats Plastidipped rear badges

In tonight's episode of More OCD With Leather For Fun & Profit, we finish what we started. After the last bit of restoration on the driver's seat, it looked pretty good in the sunlight, where the colour seemed a good match. But before we can move on from the driver's seat, there is something that needs finishing that we couldn't do with the rest of the seat. The piped edge of the side bolster had a little wear in the colour, and as fixing it requires that stitching to be masked from the other side (the side that we were fixing), it had to wait until the main repair was dry and cured. The leather was cleaned and treated along with the rest of the seat, so as before, the next step is to sand away the damaged dye with 600 grit paper and the Leatherique Prepping Agent. Since we're just dyeing a very narrow strip, I'm doing it with by dabbing on the dye with a cotton bud. I found that if you sanded all of the old dye down to the parent leather, the new dye gets soaked up very fast. And after a few coats, it's looking good again. The next step is to clean and moisturise the other three seats. The pre-dyeing steps with the Leatherique Rejuvenator and Prestine Clean are recommended as a normal maintenance for good leather, so I figured I might as well... First step is the Rejuvenator moisturising fluid. You'd think that you'd clean it first and THEN moisturise, but Leatherique do it the other way around. So the sticky oily fluid goes onto the leather with a brush. It absorbs better in the heat, when the fluid becomes thinner, so i roll up the windows and idle the car for 20mins with the heater on full blast to at least get "some" heat in there. The next day, some of the stuff has been absorbed, but as the other seats are in actually pretty good shape, they didn't have any high-wear areas that soaked up all of the fluid. The Prestine Clean is then sprayed on, given a quick scrub with a leather brush and then is wiped down with a damp cloth (that you have to keep rinsing out in a bucket of hot water). But...you can't argue with the result. By moisturising first and cleaning later, there is no greasy sheen to the leather and it's really dry, clean and noticeably fatter and softer to the touch. The last job (I promise) is to see if I can knock the shine off the steering wheel. Now, I reckon that some of the shine is due to the mechanical polishing of the leather by your hands over the years. But I reckon at least some of the shine would be from crap on your hands being embedded into the leather and polished, too. So on goes the Rejuvenator moisturising fluid to sit overnight. It's meant to soften the dirt and oils and make it come off when you do the cleaning step. Next day, it doesn't look like much of it has been absorbed at all. But I figure it might become more absorbent if I give it a good clean and repeat the process. So it gets a good scrub with Prestine Clean and the brush, before the Rejuvenator goes on again for another night. Next day, it does seem to come out better after the clean, and in the low-traffic areas, the shine is totally gone; pic of a brand new gearknob for comparison. On the higher-traffic areas like the outer rim where your right hand goes, I'd say 70% of the shine is gone, and the wheel is noticeably softer and squishier to hold. Ok, that's it...no more 🙂 The Facebook F club show and shine is on Sunday, and I figure the interior is as done as it's going to get 🙂 ...for now.

Late last year I decided to have the side bolsters of the driver's seat repaired. Due to the big bolsters on the seats, pretty much all ISFs have unusually high wear on the edges of the seats. A dude came to my house, sanded the leather and applied a new coat of paint which looked great for a while. But it didn't last. Basically the foam under the leather was collapsed, and everytime you sat on the seat, the leather would crease and fold. This flexes the leather and cracks the newly applied paint, which in my case started flaking off within a month. It's not the fault of the paint guy, in fact he did caution me that unless the foam was repaired, the repair possibly might not last very long. And so you see today, the leather is saggy and where it's creased and folded, you can see the darker leather underneath the surface. In comparison, the leather on the tunnel-side of the seat is nice and taut and you can't make it bunch up like the outside bolster, no matter how hard you try. So the foam has to be repaired before we try anything else. So I took the seat out of the car and dropped it off at my favourite trimmer. $250 and a couple of days later, the outside bolster was a mirror image of the inside one again. The creases and folds are now pulled tauter, which kinda makes them more obvious now 🙂 But you'll also notice that the leather is still a little wavy, and isn't perfectly flat and smooth as it should be. More of this anon. Now before we get too carried away with what happens next, we should talk about leather. The grain that you see on leather seats isn't natural at all, but is in fact a pattern that is hot-rolled into the leather with a polyurethane coating. That's why leather seats are such a perfectly uniform grain. When leather comes off the cow, it peeled into 5 layers. the top and bottom layers are used for handbags, book binding and shoes, and it's the middle layer that gets used for seating. It has no grain, which is why an artificial grain has to be imparted on it. So it gets rolled to install a plastic outer layer, which is both the colour and the grain. And when modern seats age, rather than look mellow like a vintage piece of furniture, the colour layer peels or flakes off and the seats look terrible. And the reason why we can't have leather like they had in cars in the 1950s, is because the ye-olde tanning process used chromium and other awful chemicals, and it's no longer legal to make leather that way. Even India has banned it 🙂 So the repair that we're about to apply is called a "dye" but it might be fairer to call it a flexible coloured coating. Years ago I had to restore a leather steering wheel, and so I bought this Leatherique kit which worked pretty well. There was enough left in the kit, that all I had to get was the colour, which was mixed up at http://www.ppcco.com.au/ to suit the seat. There's multiple steps, and as you'll see the whole process takes about a week. The first step is to apply the Rejuvenator, which is like a moisturising oil. It's not oil and is actually water-based, but it goes on like a sticky, honeylike oil. The idea is that it seeps into the leather to soften it...now if you've been paying attention, then you might be thinking that it can't possibly soak in, because the leather has that hotrolled plastic coating, right? And you'd be correct! The next morning, the areas where the leather is good, still show a thin sticky layer of the stuff...but the areas where the leather coating was damaged and the base leather was exposed...on those areas the sticky goo had been totally absorbed. I think this is important, because leather dries out once the coating is breached. So this is the last chance to get some moisture and flexibility back into the damaged sections. Also, there is still some absorbtion in the "good" areas of the seat, because there are always pinholes and micro-tears in the coating which let the stuff through. And the large sections which are perforated absorbed the stuff the best. Remember how the leather still looked a little wavy after the repadding? Well, the Rejuvenator seems to have fattened up the leather in the creases and made the whole thing more supple, so straight away you notice that it's flatter and more relaxed-looking. Next step is Prestine Clean, which is a cleaner/solvent that's brushed on... And then you use a leather brush to clean/scrub... ...before wiping away the dirty detergent with a damp cloth (that you need to keep rinsing) Rejuvenator and Prestine Clean are what Leatherique recommends to clean and condition leather as part of your normal maintenance, so I did the whole seat, which now felt noticeably clean and softer. You then have to wait 48hrs 🙂 before progressing to the business end. Which involves sandpaper. You fill a bowl with the Prepping Agent, dip some 600 emery paper into it, and go to town to remove the old damaged dye and leave a smooth surface. After all that, wipe down to see that you have well and truly passed the point of no return 🙂 Run your fingers across the leather to see if what you feel is a totally smooth, even drag. If you can feel it on your finger tips, you'll see it under the new dye. In this pic below, you can actually see on the left, that the paint repair was actually slightly browner than the seat colour. Then you mask the black stitching with electrician's tape, which I figured was more flexible to accommodate the bumpy stitching. Shake the crap out of the bottle of dye, pour it into a container and stir it again...then get a clean cloth, rinse it and wring it dry, then form a "puff" with it that has no edges. Then rub on the dye with light, circular strokes, like polishing a car. I start off with light, thin coats, which dry in 10mins with a hairdryer. After a couple of coats...you can still see the dark patches where the old colour came off. But after about 6 light coats, it's looking pretty good. The finish is an even semi-matte, and you can't see any strokes or splotches. So...a pretty good result 🙂 The only thing I'm not 100% happy with, is that the dye is maybe a little more yellowy than the original colour. When the guy mixed up the colour, we smudged a little onto the seat and the colour match looked spot on, so maybe I didn't shake or stir it enough. But then again, this is in my kitchen under downlights and sitting on white tiles, so perhaps it isn't noticeable once it's in the dark cabin. The old spray repair was actually more brown than it should be and wasn't noticeable, so fingers crossed. And...it'll be 48hrs before I can sit in it 🙂 As to whether this repair lasts, I guess we'll see. But the fact that the foam is back to its old self again means we have a significant head start.

Double demerits and a long weekend seemed like a good idea to finally do something I'd been putting off since I bought the car, which is to apply the Gyeon Mohs paint coating. I'd done a paint correction on the car when I first got it, but as the Gyeon process takes 3 days (during which you can't move the car), at the time I was too busy driving it to bother. But it's high time I got off my arse to do it. Stage 1 is to give the car a good wash. And after rinsing the car, while it's still wet I clay it down to remove surface contaminants. I don't park it outside much, so it was still reasonably clean from last year's detail, and the claybar didn't pick up all that much. Once the car's dried, I can start on the polishing. And the first stage is the heavy cut. Only put a small amount on the coarse cutting pad (a little like a towel material)...this is enough to do a whole fender. Dab the pad (with the polisher turned off) to distribute the polish around the panel. And then whizz it lightly around on the lowest speed setting, to spread the product in an even haze all over. Once you have good coverage, turn the polisher speed up to max, and slowly move it around the panel in a criss-cross pattern. The polish should almost buff until it's clear, which means that the abrasives are broken down to a fine powder and have done what they need to do. Then buff with a cloth. At this point, it's pretty good. Any swirls are gone and the paint looks nice and deep. In a few spots where I noticed a bit of a scratch, I'd give it a few more goes with the heavy cut to make the scratch less noticeable. But it still has more to give. Next step is the medium cut, which is applied with a foam polishing pad. There's a bit of crusty old polish on the pad from when I did the Hako last, but it all comes off with a stiff brush. Same process to apply as before, and it noticeably does add more gloss. But to get that mile-deep look like the paint is still wet, there is one more polishing step to add that last bit of gloss. This is the fine cut polish, which is applied with a finishing pad, which had smaller holes in the foam than the one I used for the medium cut, and feels smoother to the touch. Again...same process to apply as described above, and it does seem to have knocked the rougher edges off the paint, and it's now quite reflective. Now that the paint correction is done, we can start to apply the Mohs coating. Before we do that, the whole car needs to be sprayed with this stuff. It's like an alcohol, but a bit stronger and it's to remove the oils and lubricants leftover from the polishing stage. This allows the coating to bond better to the paint. It's applied very generously to the car, and then carefully wiped off. There are no more steps before we apply the coating, so it's important to use a new (or at least freshly washed) cloth to wipe it off, as you can't leave any dirty streaks. Do a very small section at a time, so that it doesn't get a chance to fully evaporate and leave a streak. The Gyeon Mohs kit consists of a small glass bottle of the Mohs solution, a foam block, some bits of sueded cloth, and a spraybottle of Q2 Cure (more of which anon) You start by wrapping one of the cloths around the foam block, and dribbling on about 12 drops of the Mohs solution in a line. It goes on like a greasy film, so it's easy to notice if you missed a spot. Just the same, you do a criss-cross pattern to get it nice and even. In the summer heat, it flashes off quite quickly, so I do a small patch at a time (eg half a door or 1/6th of the bonnet), wait 15 seconds and then buff to remove. As with the alcohol-wipe stage, it's super important not to leave any streaks so I use a new cloth and keep checking the paint reflection in case I missed a spot. Any streaks will dry that way. Then you have to walk away and let it sit for 12hrs, before applying the Q2 Cure. It's like a detailer-spray that's meant to be applied every now and then to give the coating some protection and to top it up. Spray it sparingly on a cloth, and wipe it across all the panels, one small section at a time. It can leave milky streaks so as before; wiper on and then use a freshly washed cloth to buff and pick it all up. And then you leave it alone for another 12-24hrs before you can move the car, to allow the whole shebang to cure. Apparently it doesn't fully cure for 2-3 weeks, so the instructions warn you not to wash the car for at least a week. So I think keeping the car dry is probably not a bad idea. The coating is meant to be a hard sealant to protect the paint correction work done underneath, but it also adds a fair bit of reflectiveness. It's meant to last 12mths and is hydrophobic, so rather oddly driving in the rain seems to make the car cleaner. Its water-repellant properties also seem to make dirt less likely to stick, and it's a lot easier to wash and keep clean. I ran a water hose over one of the suede cloths I used to apply the coating, and yeah it seems water repellant; you can run a hose over it, and the water all runs off and the cloth comes out dry. Pretty happy with how it turned out.

here's mine

Hi All, Thanks LTuned for the advice ... again! I had no problem attaching these couple of photos this morning from my iPhone, but it wasn’t working with the iPad late last night for whatever reason. Have a great day all! Matthew