Thursday, 6 August 2009

Dealing with a stained seat

As you can see I have a stained seat. I posted a request for help on the LCUSA forum and here is what transcribed:

Below you can see what the seat looked like pre-cleaned with saddle soap.
"I placed my red bench seat upside down on top of its springs and grease made its way onto the seat quite visibly. Any reason I should NOT use Murphy's Oil Soap or some other leather cleaner on it?
If so, what do you recommend I clean it with and why?" - Jeremy

Below is a picture of the seat after three washes using saddle soap. See it shine.
"..probably vinyl and not real leather. Gonna be hard to wash with the hard rubber backing. I'd try mild soapy water and a soft sponge, don't scrub." - ALexM

Below is another picture of the seat after being cleaned in the natural sun light. As you can see the entire seat responded well to the cleaning, but the stain is still there and didn't seem to improve.
"Alex is right, mild dish soap or diluted Simple Green to clean the vinyl. If you want to make it look pretty after that then I recommend something like Meguiars Vinyl and Rubber Cleaner/Conditioner. Gives it a matte shine unlike Armor All which makes it look wet all the time and is so slick your ass will probably slide right off." - Ming

Below is a close up of one of the main stains after the cleaning.
"Try gojo hand cleaner with or without pumice" - Rude De / "What Rude De said. I have used it for many years to clean paintjobs too. Make sure to use non pumice on paintjobs." - DiryHandsLopez

Below is a picture of the smaller main stain. Picture is a little out of focused so you can't tell that the stain is worse than what you see here.
"IMO,
It depends on how old and worn the seat is. If its older, it will be more porous and likely to stain from any sort of cleaner you put on there. My guess is it is probably is a bit aged because if it was newer vinyl it might not have gotten stained from grease in the first place...just a guess. Therefore, if it was me, and especially if its an original seat, I would clean the whole thing with saddle soap (follow instructions, get it nice and foamy with a bit of water and a sponge and wipe it off right away. I like to keep a little bucket of water to rinse the sponge in) starting from the front and work toward the back. While going over that stained area, I would introduce a bit of simple green for a while if its stubborn but move past it fairly quickly until you do the whole seat. Then come back to it if you didnt get it all the first time around. Let it dry. If the simple green didnt work well enough and the whole thing looks like it responded well, I would do it all over again and then yes, try the gojo on the spot this time. I would avoid doing any sort of spot cleaning especially if the cleaner had any sort of a oily, solvent or parafin type base.

my three cents.
mo peace and less grease, Beat

Oh, of course do this out of direct sunlight while the seat's not hot." - Beat

Below you can see a small tear I have in the vinyl. I hope to use a vinyl glue to prevent it from tearing any more.
"Sad and good news. The entire red seat responded well to the saddle soap. I washed it three times in a row. First with a light wash. Then heavy and finally a medium lather to wrap it up. The seat looks great, except for the fact that the stains are still 100% there. I feel a bit pissed at myself, because I put the seat in the situation that resulted in this stain unneccesarily. Stupid! I did not have Simple Green or Gojo. I assume you recommend Simple Green with the method you suggested and then Gojo if that's a no go? Any other suggestions?" - Jeremy

Below is a picture of the emblem and rear end of the seat. I want to determine if this is an original seat or not.
Does this look like an original stock seat to you guys?

Here is the entire seat below.
Above is the seat frame and the underside of the upholstered part.
What I find interesting here is there appears to be a price tag or some type of label on the underside of the seat.

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