Hi Folks!

Bought this leather steering wheel from the wreckers for a steal, overall it's in pretty good nic (with some added character here and there), but the biggest thing that I'd like to fix with it is the wear down the top right side (12 o'clock to 4 o'clock).

What do I need to recolour the grey wear marks back to a nice black colour? I understand it's not going to "feel" as nice as the leather, but I at least want it to look decent enough. Would some DHT black vinyl dye do the trick? Leather polish?

Cheers,
Leigh

Leigh,

A few months ago I hunted high & low for black leather dye for my centre console. I had it covered in leather but the colour turned out to be a bit too light for my liking.

I tried black shoe polish (the good ol' Kiwi) but it made no difference at all.

The only thing I could find that was handy & cheap, without resorting to an on-line order, was a 50ml bottle of "Shucare leather, suede & nubuck dye".

I got it from a local shoe repair shop for $9.95.

It worked perfectly.

It probably won't end up as glossy as you would like on your steering wheel, but a coat or two of lacquer should fix that.

KJ.

vht is shit don't use it

use septone vinyl dye i use it on my steerin g wheels i went from this

http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/5323/momo2p.jpg

to this

http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/8173/momo10.jpg

or caorse theres a process it has to be sanded back and a tiny jewlers crewdriver to fix the perforations but it holds up really well it doesn't wear out it just goes shiny after 50,000kms and when it does just put another coat on it.

the worst thing u can do is put laquer on it as it makes the wheel slippery and is extremely dangerouse

That looks amazing Alan! Where do you get that stuff from?

i think supercheap auto have started supplying it again, but if not eastern auto paints can get it in.

its a great product, made in Australia but its not that popular they used to have a big range of colours but now they only do black.

give the wheel a really good clean with detergent to get all the grease and loose paint off, let it dry for a few days. rub back the furry leather bits with office paper to get them smooth

then give it a light coat, let it dry and sand back with 800 wet and dry and repeat the process til u get the finish your after. the coats will build up and fill any scratches and the sanding mweans it wont get too thick or else the paint will crack later on.