Hey guys,

The seats for my 1967 Jaguar 420G are pretty old and dry, and I was wondering if anyone has some recommendations for leather cleaner/restorer that I could use on them?

Thanks, Oden

 

I have always found Zymöl to be very good, and also Autoglym. If your seats are old and dry you'll need to follow up with some leather conditioner too, to get the leather supple again.

 

Hey thanks Fraser, I will check those out.
Any opinion on Renapur cleaner/conditioner? I saw that it has some good reviews.

-Oden

 

First time I've heard of Renapur, but I expect it is OK. Why not try it ?

 

All the best leather conditioners are animal fat based such as mink, lanolin, or bovine, an do not contain wax or silicone.

Animal fats, protein, collagen, elastin and moisture are what keep skin from shrinking, drying and cracking.

Wax and silicone are repellents. When you wax the paint on your car, and it rains, water beads up; but that's opposite of what you want for leather, you want it to be absorbed, not repelled off.

Here's the description of the Renapur:

https://renapur.com/products/renapur-leather-balsam

To me, it's all wrong.

Even aloe vera has protein and collagen added.

Good luck with you Jaguar, and best for the new year.
Rob.

 

My own seat improvement efforts:

A very knowledgeable guy I know in the Porsche re-upholstery business says that if the fibers in your old leather have broken, there's no fixing it. I hope you're not at that point.

The driver's seat cushion on my car has clearly reached that point, and the rest of the seats must be nearing that condition. Re-covering would be appropriate, but I've struggled to find someone who does it anymore in my area. The same expert called his usual supplier of ready-made covers, confident they could supply them. But no, not for the Mk10.

So, I settled on improving them as much as I can. I placed some matching vinyl under the ripped and torn driver's cushion (with 3M 90 adhesive) to hold it all together and hide the stuffing. I also did some re-stuffing. Some of the old foam turned to red powder, especially the rear seat back. The leather was all pretty dingy, but nothing I tried could clean them. Instead, I've re-stained them (beige) with something like Clyde's. Perhaps my old jar of Clyde's had gotten a little dry, so I used something very similar from Amazon that went on much better, and was much less expensive.
Looks good from outside the car to a casual observer, my modest goal.

This week, I'm replacing the vinyl that covers the sills, which had turned very dingy, or rather, discolored - various cleaners did nothing. The same new vinyl material matches quite well. The thin foam under it had disintegrated to the same sort of red powder. More 3M 90 should keep some new foam and the vinyl in place.

I recovered the console in this new vinyl, also. That far exceeded my meager skills, and the ability of vinyl to be shaped over compound curves; not proud of it, but it is better than it was.