Remove Seat Paint?

[downforce22]

Is there any way to remove interior paint from the leather seats and door cards without ruining them?


I bought a 1986 grey market 325iX in diamond schwarz metallic and it came with a very rare dark red leather sport interior called Taurusrot. Considering this car was produced in 10/85 and is probably one of the earliest 325iX still around, let alone in the US, I would prefer to bring it back to its former glory. (Yes it has the rare 3.64 front and rear differentials). The previous owner had a hard on for black and painted most of the interior black...


Is there any way to remove the paint from the leather without ruining it? Some areas like the bottom section of the rear seats have folded under weight and caused some of the black to come off showing the red underneath but the door cards looks to be thick. Luckily the front sport seats were not going to be used and he did not paint them (only some overspray).


For your reference, here is the color:


Ignore the bright red, the flash caused the color, but the actual car, seats, and door cards.





In an e28, what it actually looks like in person.



Please help!!

[downforce22]

Any ideas?

[Swanny]

I can pull out my taurusrot door cards and check out their condition. Will probably need a redye but it's at least in the right direction.

[downforce22]

Do you mean that you have some taurusrot door cards you are not using?

[downforce22]

I dove into the seats tonight. Long story short I bought some leather cleaner and a scrub brush and went after it. I apologize in advance for the picture, I will get better ones in the near future.

The paint isnt too bad, most placed can be scrubbed off with the brush and some water or a finger nail. I'm not sure the leather cleaner does much, just a lot of elbow grease but the leather is actually in really nice condition. After I finish this I plan to treat the leather with some leather conditioner to bring it back to its butter soft glory. On to the pictures. This is after a couple hours scrubbing.

You can see the red coming through on the ends where I rubbed it with my hands but this is more or less what I started with.




This is after some decent scrubbing on the seat bottom. The color is more or a dark red, but I'm sure will be really neat when it is supple again. This shows more or less what is actually looks like compared to other colors.



Here is where I am currently at. Still need to do the arm rest/ ski pass and the head rests as wel as the sides/ bottom of the seat and backrest. This is in direct light and shows how deep a color this red is. Still need to treat the leather, more pictures to follow.



I hope this helps somebody else who has a glorious interior that has been destroyed. ;-)

[AndrewBird]

On all the vinyl, you should be able to safely use acetone to clean the paint off. Try in a unseen area first though.

On leather, start gentle (looks like you already have) and work your way up. You might get away with lightly cleaning with acetone, just enough to get the majority, then a brush and cleaner like you are doing.

I've used super clean and a scrub brush on my leather seats to clean them with good results. Might be an option for you. Then treat the leather as you normally would.

[downforce22]

Thanks guys. I didn't try the acetone due to being worried about the leather. The old scrub brush worked wonders.

I did treat the leather and it has brought back the seats. It is amazing, I don't know why somebody would paint these? The rear seat is not perfect and showing some wear, but the conditioner has helped. I will continue using it to try to bring it back. I couldn't get the strip seam clean but it looks pretty good just straight black.

Also, another picture to come of the rear panels. They look great all things considered! I used a thin screw driver to coax the paint off the panels and vinyl? stitching. I plan to do the fronts and left the edge black. Pictures soon to follow.

Oh yeah, go broncos!

[word is bond]

Looks great. Can't imagine why someone would paint over that. Do you plan on leaving the piping black?

[downforce22]

I'll post pics, I did the rears and am working on the front side panels this weekend. Almost have 1 done, its very tedious.

[tschultz]

Looks good! I also like the black piping! :hitler: