RE: IML: leather seat reconditioning?

["Neal Herman" <chrycordoba@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hate to tell you this, but if your '59 Imperial has black upholstery at all, it's not original.  I don't remember whether you have a Crown or a Custom.  Leather was available in the Crown series, but only in a light-to-medium blue, tan, red and white.  Is your car Aqua Mist, like mine?  If so, the only all-leather interior color with that paint was white.  Even the LeBarons only came in broadcloth/leather in blue, green, tan/brown, light grey leather/dark grey broadcloth, and rose leather/red broadcloth; in addition to those colors in all-broadcloth.  I have the complete dealer paint chip & upholstery sample binder, and there's no black.

 

The dash is vinyl, not leather.  The door panels are also vinyl.  A clue to your original upholstery would be what is on the middle part of the door panel, below the armrest but above the strip of carpet at the bottom.  What is there should be what was once on the seat inserts.

 

On another note, I returned a week ago from the Anniston show in Miss Dorothy, my '66 Imperial.  She did quite well, except for a fan clutch that froze up on I-85 in South Carolina.  That was an easily obtained part once I got to Atlanta (thanks, Chris H. for the diagnosis!) and cruised the rest of the trip with no problems.  She did like her high-test Ethyl, though.  I averaged a shade under 12mpg on the highway.  But that was at my average cruising speed of 75-80mph.  With a car as large and solid as she is, the speed just creeps up on you without you being aware of it.  Ratchet it back down to 65, and you might as well be in reverse!

 

Neal Herman

1959 Imperial Crown 4-door Southampton (Aqua Mist, Silvercrest Landau roof, "Balmoral" cloth & leather interior) "Aquitania"

1966 Imperial Crown 4-door hardtop (Haze Green, Ivory vinyl roof, pearlescent white leather interior) "Miss Dorothy"

et al.

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: henry ford

To: mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sent: 4/18/2005 6:55:33 PM

Subject: IML: leather seat reconditioning?

I posted a few weeks ago about that I was thinking of changing my interior, but that crazy idea was not going to be cheep by no means, so now to help save money and actually get my car restored and look correct I'm going to try to use as much of the original interior as possible,

 

so to get my question started I have a 59 crown 4 dr ht the  seats in my car are 50/50 buckets in front with 2 arm rests the material is black leather. the rear seat has the center arm rest and is also black leather , the rear seat is old looking but other than looks it's in very good condition the leather has no tears or flaws in it but it is very dry and would probably tear if I were to sit my 260lb butt in them,

 

the front seats are not as good as the rear both fronts have tears where the butt meats the seat , the back rest part of the seats are tear free,

 

 

so is it possible to only repair the part of the seat with the tears or would I need the entire front seats recovered. also what would be good to soften up the rear seat leather to help prevent tears. and get rid of the old smell?

 

I have only used leather cleaners in spray cans on other cars to clean them , I don't have much exp with leather .

 

also my dash is covered with what I believe to be black leather, it has no cracks or tears in it but it seems to have lifted in a few places. can the original material be reused and glued back down, has anyone done this with success?

 

and my door panels , they are a aqua color, are they also leather?, or vinyl?

 

I don't know as of yet what my interior color code is because I cant make out the body tag under the hood just yet, it is corroded to the point that the letters or numbers look the same, I believe the  air-condition lines from the condenser  that run within 1/2 an inch from the body tag caused the rust to form the way it did. all I see is what looks like (xxx) or (HHH) or something resembling and I have not seen my interior colors on the site, maybe because of my computer monitor but not sure.

 

also headliners, my headliner was all to pieces when I bought my car, and I don't have a pattern to get a new one made, does anyone have a pattern or an old headliner to sell cheep? I just need something to get a new one reproduced at a local shop.

 

I live in kentucky 60 miles west from bowling green and 74 miles north west from nashville TN. if anyone has info contact me off the list .

 

my car wont be ready for any trips this year, but im planing on going to the chattanooga meet in may 27-30 hope to see everyone there,

 

my wife told me a few weeks ago she saw a car that looked like mine but was a yellow 59 that was in town, anyone know of this car? I wished I had seen it ,

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