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King Ranch Seats

18K views 68 replies 21 participants last post by  hamviper 
#1 ·
Can anyone point me in the right direction to get my King Ranch seats looking good again. My truck spent all its life in Florida and they are extremely faded. I tried Leather CPR and it worked on some spots but other spots it wont absorb at all...

Thank you,
Tom
 
#2 ·
Here is the problem... The seats are 100% aniline leather. This means that they are unprotected, which is good and bad.. Its good because the leather conditioners actually absorb into the leather unlike modern leather interiors in cars, which are coated in plastic. This keeps them looking good for years, but at the price of nasty feeling/hot in the summer sticky seats....

So with that being said the bad is that you have to be careful on which conditioners you use. Some will actually degrade the leather and make them STUPID oily and stain clothes etc.. TRUST ME ON THIS. Go to amazon and buy the Leather Honey conditioner. Its the best Ive tried and it gets the leather so damn soft its crazy..

Also, the best way to clean these is use SMOKIN' hot water. What I do is get some old t shirts, wet them and put them in the microwave. Heat em up and take them out in 45 seconds. Then take them out to your car FAST ( get a dry towel and wrap the hot ones, you'll burn yourself ) and then lay the hot shirts over the dirty areas until the shirts cool.This will pull the dirt and oils out. You may have to lightly and sLOWLY rub the bad areas. Dont do too much as it will make it look furry/fuzzy ( think of the fibers coming loose from the leather ) You may have to do this several times. Wait until the seats are dry prior to conditioning ( about 2-3 hrs )

Here are some tips I found over the months while using the Honey. Designate about 1-2 hours to this. You need to wait on a hot day too. Heat will help open the leather and allow the Leather Honey to soak in better. When you apply the Honey use your hands, either with gloves or bare. They say its 100% safe etc, so I go naked. What I do is put some in my hands and rub it all over so there are no dry spots, then I dip my finger in the bottle or pour a little bit out. Then go to town rubbing back and forth slowly using pressure creating heat, this will turn your seat DARK damn near black, but relax... Its the Honey soaking in, TRUST ME here!

Then rinse and repeat. YOu will be able to tell where the seats are dry as they will turn black. If they dont turn, still keep rubbing and it will absorb what it wants.

What I do is do it early AM, let it bake in the sun all day and then get a MF towel and buff the seats the next day. Again, this is usually a weekend project that I dedicate no truck use on.

The seats will be tacky feeling as it only absorbs X amount of Honey per application, hence you buffing the residue off. So with that said, I would do it again in a week and you should be good for around 8-12mths from my experience.
 
#3 ·
I used the same leather honey great stuff I found it at a saddle shop !! I also used bare hands to apply sticky stuff !! Try a damp cloth and iron pulls stains like magic !!
 
#4 ·
take a look at my photo album.
 
#5 ·
Just got my King Ranch leather cream in the mail and it did absolutely nothing... Looks like im amazon bound. Thanks everyone for the responses!


Tom
 
#8 ·
I am glad to hear it is going well so far but as you know, we will require before and after pictures!! I can't wait to see how they turn out!
 
#9 ·
Ok, here is a good before and after photo. (passenger side seat)

(by the way, I had to use 500 grit sand paper on the passenger seat. I'm not sure what was on it, but it had been there since I bought the truck)
 

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#14 ·
Mainly followed their directions. And, Ford_fan1 had some tips he had received from someone else.

1. warm wet cloth to remove loose dirt.

2. Used their cleaner, which is just put on a soft cloth

3. Used a scrub pad for dishes (Ford_Fan1's suggestion) to get some tougher stuff off.

4. On the passenger side seat, I used 500 grit sand paper. I don't know what was on that seat, but, the sand paper got it off. ( I had read this some where, but I can't recall where)

5. Mixed the product from the kit. Then applied with soft cloth. Let dry between applications. If you need to do more than one. I had missed a few areas here and there, so I needed to go back and hit those.

If I were to do this as a business, I would probably do a spray system. Although there is more prep work to keep the rest of the interior protected from over spray, it would probably be a more even coat.
 
#15 ·
Can u post a link to the kit ( thought I had it saved can't find !!!) thanks !!
 
#18 ·
Just did my back seats. The center console in the rear seat had the original color that hasn't seen sunlight. The color was so much darker in the original. I was amazed at just how faded even the rear seats were. Now the color comes very close to matching that leather.

Here are a couple photos. One is before and after. The other shows the center console down. I did not dye the area around the cup holders. All the leather you see there is original color.
 

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#20 ·
I used just about every drop of the cleaner. I still have a 1/4 of the dye left in the bottle. (one kit did it all)

The front seat area takes the most, since the whole seat is leather (front and back).

The cleaner really did a good job on the steering wheel wraps. Here is a before and after. (My steering wheel wraps were pretty much black)
 

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#21 ·
Looks like new,great job !! I think I'm going w/ darker dye my 06 seems darker then yours !!! Thanks again for the info !!


Sent from AutoGuide.com Free App
 
#22 ·
I know this thread is a little old but I was wondering if any of y'all that dyed their seats had any cracks on your arm rest or any other parts. my arm rests have some cracks on the top and a few bigger cracks on the bottom of the passanger. Anybody know how I can go about fixing these cracks when I redye my truck?

Thanks
 
#23 ·
my arm rest are all cracked and "pitted" (dont know if thats the right term) but i just took them off and flipped them over and they look brand new. You will have to put the drivers side on the passanger side once you flip it and vise versa...

Tom
 
#25 ·
#26 ·
No fricken way.... If that stuff really works the way he shows it does, im sold on 5 bottles... I need that stuff BAD!!!!!

Anyone???


Tom
 
#35 ·
Okay so I started cleaning the interior today but I only did the center console and the side of the passenger seat. I will post up a new thread when I finally get the results back. I am gonna to have to put on a few more coats before I start getting results since my interior is so dirty. I have taken pics of everything I have done so far.
 
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