Repairing and Re-colouring the Ivory leather on a 2010 is250

[normski2]

My IS250 is now 13yrs old and the ivory-coloured leather is looking tired. I’d been mulling over different options and settled on doing the work myself with a restoration/recolouring kit. There are a few companies out there that can supply you with the necessary components. Having watched many tutorial videos and accounts of how the job went I settled on getting my gear from Furniture Clinic based in Durham.

https://www.furnitureclinic.co.uk/

This is the kit I got along with some of my own bits I have in the garage.

 My additional bits were a funnel, selection of paint brushes, foam backed sanding blocks [ I'm lucky I have many from previous], measuring pot say 5-50ml is damned handy [the type from the top of Tomato feed is spot on] and a selection of Pry tools for getting thing apart without damage. Oh and my spray gun got in on the act too I see!

It is the medium colourant kit plus I got the repair add on pack so that I could do some filling with their flexible filler. I also sought out a small leather sample piece from inside a headrest for a colour match to be made.

The worst scuffing/wear/cracking and discolouration was on the driver’s seat and the centre armrest as you would expect. These three photos show the condition of the areas needing the most work. So, the plan was to fully refurbish both front seats and the armrest. The seat bolster was really pretty grim.

                  

This video from Furniture Clinic [FC] is very good and pretty much encapsulates what I did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFXkraC9B7o

I found all the products to be very good apart from the airbrush kit. I have a compressor and spray gun of my own thank heavens! No matter what I tried the airbrush would not play ball. I will return to it and get an adapter for my airlines. They can be very useful tools so I will attempt to get it functioning. But that’s for another day. So, I used my own spray kit and just closed it down to low pressure and low feed and it worked a treat. I should point out everything is water based which makes it all rather pleasant!!

FC videos seem to show a lot of work being undertaken in the car but that requires a great deal of masking and you can’t get to every surface properly. So for my needs it was out of the car repairs.

This next video is useful for showing how some of the armrest components come apart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXgTBn8MHZ0

You can get the armrest out without taking out the entire centre. You just need to prise up the trim at the front of the cubby box, where it meets the wood section [on mine] enough to release the tabs and then the top U-shaped trim will pop off. The rear of the cubby box just pulls off. Then you have to move both seats forwards as far as poss to clear the beck end of the cubby box to pull out the metal tabs and its off. Two screws underneath will allow the handle to be removed. I then masked up all the underneath and mounted it on a piece of wood for spraying ... a stand if you will.

There is a useful write up here that Agent-Dess put up a while back, credit to him for this

This will guide you through seat removal if you want to remove the seats. Remember to disconnect Battery and wait 10mins before unplugging the seats. I found them not too heavy but you need to be careful when removing as you don’t want to damage anything with the seat prongs [they stick out a wee bit – so be mindful!]. I wrapped masking tape around mine! The Driver’s seat is the more awkward of the two as you have the steering wheel to contend with. The three electrical plugs under the seat are a bit fiddly but not too bad.

I also removed the lower plastic trim once the seat was out and up on my workmate bench. There are three screws hidden underneath. Two at the front and one at the back. Pry off the raise/ lower knob and back tilt knob and remove the three screws that are now seen. Then unplug the electrical connector and its out of the way.

              

Next was masking up all the areas you want to protect from spraying. Seat back is a contrasting colour on mine so that need looking at with care. I masked the headrest collars and the stalk and the re-inserted the headrest into the seat as it’s easier for me to spray it all in situ.

               

I then did everything as outlined in the FC repair video. But I used my own spray gun for applying the colour and the clear two pack top finish. I have to say the colour is spot on. The Leather Binder I found to be very good indeed, that I used on the more heavily scuffed areas. The Heavy filler and Flexifill are surprisingly good, much better than I anticipated. In truth I could have put more in but that’s something you learn from experience, and I had none with this! It seems odd using a hair drier to speed up curing but it really works well and at every stage even after spraying the finishes on!! Just remember when you start scrubbing it's going to look worse...much worse on the bad areas. But then it all starts to improve.

               This is the side bolster after scrub and 6 coats of filler applied with the spatula

          Same bolster after dab sponging on some colourant just to see how it's looking after filler.

                

Colour coat [x3 with 10 mins between coats]. Colour coat is glossy/satin finish and when dry is still almost tacky to the touch.

                   

If you sponge apply any colorant onto the pierced leather ... do not wipe it on [ you'll clog those holes!] ... just dab it gently. If you mess up and block a hole just tease it out with something like a bradawl tip. I sprayed 3 coats of the finish top coat with 10 mins between and used the hair dryer to speed it up. If go careful you can see it drying in front of your eyes. If you get a sag or run just dab it with a sponge. Pleased to report I did not get 1 ... but then I was a furniture restorer and sprayer for over 20 years. 

     Passenger seat and armrest done ... driver's seat untouched

      Everything back in the car

I am very pleased with the results and very pleasantly surprised at the flexibility of the fillers and finishes. I have been poking and prodding after 24 hrs and it’s all very impressive. My only gripe would be that FC don't supply enough crosslinker for the amount of top finish supplied at 8:1 mix!! Which to me is daft, but they claim the pack is based on 250ml ... but I have 500 ml? ... and we go round in circles on the phone getting absolutely nowhere! That's just poor in my book.

How long did it take? Firstly, I’m retired so I have plenty of free time [ I was spraying the last coat at 7pm on Thursday evening!!]. The kit arrived early on Wednesday morning and I finished putting everything back in the car at lunchtime on Friday. Oh and there is enough left over to do the whole exercise again.

The plan now is to leave it for 3 or 4 days to fully cure and then I'll give it a going over with the FC Protection Cream. I've given it a waxy paper de-nib and it all feels really good.

There you go then ... Job done ... chuffed!

I hope that will be of use to anyone considering doing this. Take your time and follow the instructions they are very comprehensive. My only reservation is that airbrush.

 

 

 

 

 

[MattDH]

I've been looking into this kit to dye the seats in my (yet to arrive in the UK IS350 F-Sport) the same dark rose colour that was in my 3is F-Sport. Seen some videos on YouTube and the results were actually really good. For a kit that you can buy sub £100 and do full interior I'm quite impressed. 

Only thing that's holding me back is I don't have much spare indoor space to do this in. 

[Mr Vlad]

What an excellent write up Normski. Just goes to show what can be done with time and effort plus your own experience of furniture restoration must have been called upon more than regularly. 

Excellent results. Well done 👌👍

[Vintagesixtysix]

Hats off to you Normski2.

Great guide….. Great result.

Ive always wondered about the seat perforation bit when restoring.

I think your 20 years experience might just have given you an edge! 👍

Im sure it will feel like a new motor again.

 

ps. Glad it didn’t involve the circular saw. 😁

[agent_dess]

Amazing results, good work 👍

Here's to another 13 years 😁

[Mike_Mac]

That look superb Normski - thanks! Now that my 250's going to be a daily driver for a while I think i'll do this myself - the seats really let the interior down!

[normski2]

It's been a few days since I put the last seat back into the car, and I figured that would do for full curing to have completed. Its been pretty warm here despite the rain. To be fair the finish felt fully cured the following day, but hey, best to follow instructions and all that.

Today I applied the Leather Protection Cream. Basically, you wipe it on carefully ( if you have perforated panels) leave it for 10 mins or so and then buff it with a cloth ... and then repeat an hour or so later. It is said to add protection to the leather and add that leather aroma. Well, it certainly did that (the aroma part) ... wifey was dead impressed! So I had to go and do the seats on her MX5 too!

Thus far I remain very impressed with what is achievable with this kit from FC.

 

[steve2006]

That’s the same company I used when I did the 1994 Celsior seats and I had the exact same issues with the supplied airbrush. It was fine for very small areas but took forever with a complete seat plus “canned” air ain’t cheap.

Fortunately I have a compressor so purchased a gravity feed mini air gun sprayer.

It did take a few attempts with the colour matching, the small sample was no good and mismatched so I ended up sending the complete headrest to them to get the match correct and to be fair they didn’t charge me again.

Must admit mine was the average amateur result where as yours looks top notch 😀