Leatherique Day!
Leatherique Day!
Leatherique Day!
Yes, today is the day I cleaned the interior of the car, among other things. It’s been nice and sunny of late, so I figured this would be a good day to slather my upholstery with the mysterious elixirs George and his family have sold all these years and get my seats in order.
I’m lucky in that the interior of the car, at least the carpet and upholstery, were re-done in the correct MB material by the previous owner a few years ago. So it’s all in pretty good condition, but having lived in Arizona and now in Florida, doing whatever you can to protect the upholstery is critical.
So I laid the front seats back and began cleaning..
And more cleaning.
And of course, the back seat, too.
It looks a little different in color than the front, but that’s from the lighting.
While the Prestine Clean was working its magic I popped all of the wheel covers and trim rings off the wheels and polished the trim rings.
Not perfect, but certainly an improvement. While I was doing this I had hit the hubcaps with some paint remover and was letting it work on the remains of the paint on all of them. After a good rinse and a dry, they were all clean. The trim rings are ready to go back on the wheels, the hubcaps ready to be masked for painting. After this I washed the wheels to get accumulated dirt off of them.
I brought the car into the garage to finish up the upholstery. I was lucky as my seats are really clean, but the Prestine Clean still got a fair amount of invisible crud out of the nooks and crannies.
With the seats cleaned and done, I decided to remove the back seat so that I could remove the parcel shelf in order to recover it. The vinyl between the rear window and parcel shelf will get replaced when the headliner is done, but the parcel shelf is a pretty big and very visible piece in the interior that I wanted to address.
Bottom cushion out.
Back cushion, bolted through the rear panel, removed along with the parcel shelf.
And here is the parcel shelf.
With the trim rings and hubcaps off the wheels it was a good time to put some tire dressing on the tires. While some may take exception to this stuff, the brand I used has UV inhibitors in it, which are a big help in this part of the world in protecting the tires from the sun.
After that I called it a day. Tomorrow after work I’m going to swing by JoAnn Fabrics and see if I can find some vinyl to cover the parcel shelf. That and masking the hubcaps for painting will be good weeknight projects.
Sunday, January 13, 2019