Silver
17th July 2012, 12:23 AM
Hi,
There would be more than a couple of ways of doing this - I stole most of this technique, but not all, from an extremely energetic and efficient car detailer who gave Silver a going over when we bought it a few years ago from a dog owner. The dog owner kept it tidy, but loverly wife has allergies, so......
It is pretty straightforward - if it looks complex in my notes below, it is because I have run off at the mouth :-)
I had a look at options now available at the car parts place - carpet and velour cleaners etc. I decided to stick with the detailer's method because I had seen it work well, because the bristles on the containers of cleaning product looked a bit damaging for 20+ year old fabric, and because they ranged in price from $10 to $20+.
I have since been told that the bristles would have been fine...... Who knows?
Likewise, I am not saying that this will work for all stains, or all seat materials - what do they say in the classics? Test in an inconspicuous place and don't sue me if it doesn't work or even makes it worse :-)
So, I had a pair of dirty second hand second row seats, with headrests, which is important because I want to keep the Nipper's head separated from the cargo barrier.
I am a big fan of seat covers - and these would be going under seat covers - so why bother cleaning? Well, the seat belt is part of the seat, and was very grotty - would soil clothes etc. The ingredients of the stains may damage the cloth, the foam, or the seat belt webbing. They smelt a bit of various mechanical fluids. Quite a pleasant smell, really, but not a smell with universal appeal, and one that I may have fallen out of love with if it filled Silver up on a hot summer day.
What I did (with some help later on from Loverly Wife).
Put the seats outside on a sturdy old plastic table.
Sprayed that Sard stain remover on the obvious stains - oil, dissolved lollies and various other unidentified yucks. Also sprayed the marks on the vinyl parts of the seat, and the seat belts. If I could work out how to do it, I would insert the photo of the stain remover here, which is also an after photo of the head rests :-)
diluted some liquid woolwash in a bucket of warm water. Not in accordance with the instructions for use in a washing machine, just guesstimated.
rubbed the vinyl, and the seat fabric, seat belts and hardware with a microfibre mitten wet with warm woolwash. The microfibre was shortish pile, not long pile. A bristle brush would have been handy for the seat belt hardware etc. Loverly Wife bought the microfibre mitten to clean the rear window louvre on our sedan. I liked it for this job as it worked, the fibre was pretty close to perfect for the job with shortish pile, and being a mitten it protected water softened hands from being cut etc.
the degree of rubbing is dictated by the stain. I was not afraid to get the seat quite wet because.....
having removed that stain, I tested it by vacuuming the area with our el cheapo wet/dry vac. The relatively dry fabric following the vac attack, shows up how much extra work is required on the stain. The wet/dry vac and treating the stains wet is the idea I picked up from the detailer. As I said, everything got the treatment, cloth, vinyl, hardware, seatbelts.
This is where I would insert the picture of the goop that found its way into our wet/dry vac. If I knew how, in the meantime, look below :-) The photo does not do the subject justice. There were multiple layers in the goop - from a fine sandy layer down the bottom, to a thin ugly sludge topped off with an oily scum mixed with foam. A gritty sludgy petrochemical cappuchino :animierte-smilies-f This was intended to replace my before photos. I think that the overall cleaning technique gets stuff deeper than what is on the surface of the cloth, and is more effective than cleaning techniques that stop on top. The water in the bucket got pretty yuck, too. We changed it between seats. So you can see that the technique removes a lot of crud, or did for us.
Make sure that you read the instructions for your wet/dry vac. Remove the paper filter if that is what is required by the instructions, and check the instructions and the machine for anything else that keeps water and 240v separated. If you are tempted to use a volatile solvent, eg Kero or Shellite, or ? I would not be inclined to vacuum them off the seats :oops:
Our vac came with a smallish attachment that was pretty close to being perfect for most of this work. However it was open at either end, which was not ideal. I started off using the round end of the hose to go around the edges, and that attachment for the balance. Eventually we used the round hose end for the lot, as it seemed to remove more liquid.
Maybe we could have done more vacuuming, but the stains were out and it was getting cold and dark, so we bolted the seats into the car. They were too wet to sit on early this morning. Had we vacd more, the seats would have been dryer. The seats were fine this arve. When I am sure they are completely dry, I will replace the seat covers.
Here is an after photo - or it would be located here if I could work out how to shift it :-)
There is probably no need to remove the seats - the detailer did not, but it did make the job easy - and they were out of the car anyway :-)
Have fun!
There would be more than a couple of ways of doing this - I stole most of this technique, but not all, from an extremely energetic and efficient car detailer who gave Silver a going over when we bought it a few years ago from a dog owner. The dog owner kept it tidy, but loverly wife has allergies, so......
It is pretty straightforward - if it looks complex in my notes below, it is because I have run off at the mouth :-)
I had a look at options now available at the car parts place - carpet and velour cleaners etc. I decided to stick with the detailer's method because I had seen it work well, because the bristles on the containers of cleaning product looked a bit damaging for 20+ year old fabric, and because they ranged in price from $10 to $20+.
I have since been told that the bristles would have been fine...... Who knows?
Likewise, I am not saying that this will work for all stains, or all seat materials - what do they say in the classics? Test in an inconspicuous place and don't sue me if it doesn't work or even makes it worse :-)
So, I had a pair of dirty second hand second row seats, with headrests, which is important because I want to keep the Nipper's head separated from the cargo barrier.
I am a big fan of seat covers - and these would be going under seat covers - so why bother cleaning? Well, the seat belt is part of the seat, and was very grotty - would soil clothes etc. The ingredients of the stains may damage the cloth, the foam, or the seat belt webbing. They smelt a bit of various mechanical fluids. Quite a pleasant smell, really, but not a smell with universal appeal, and one that I may have fallen out of love with if it filled Silver up on a hot summer day.
What I did (with some help later on from Loverly Wife).
Put the seats outside on a sturdy old plastic table.
Sprayed that Sard stain remover on the obvious stains - oil, dissolved lollies and various other unidentified yucks. Also sprayed the marks on the vinyl parts of the seat, and the seat belts. If I could work out how to do it, I would insert the photo of the stain remover here, which is also an after photo of the head rests :-)
diluted some liquid woolwash in a bucket of warm water. Not in accordance with the instructions for use in a washing machine, just guesstimated.
rubbed the vinyl, and the seat fabric, seat belts and hardware with a microfibre mitten wet with warm woolwash. The microfibre was shortish pile, not long pile. A bristle brush would have been handy for the seat belt hardware etc. Loverly Wife bought the microfibre mitten to clean the rear window louvre on our sedan. I liked it for this job as it worked, the fibre was pretty close to perfect for the job with shortish pile, and being a mitten it protected water softened hands from being cut etc.
the degree of rubbing is dictated by the stain. I was not afraid to get the seat quite wet because.....
having removed that stain, I tested it by vacuuming the area with our el cheapo wet/dry vac. The relatively dry fabric following the vac attack, shows up how much extra work is required on the stain. The wet/dry vac and treating the stains wet is the idea I picked up from the detailer. As I said, everything got the treatment, cloth, vinyl, hardware, seatbelts.
This is where I would insert the picture of the goop that found its way into our wet/dry vac. If I knew how, in the meantime, look below :-) The photo does not do the subject justice. There were multiple layers in the goop - from a fine sandy layer down the bottom, to a thin ugly sludge topped off with an oily scum mixed with foam. A gritty sludgy petrochemical cappuchino :animierte-smilies-f This was intended to replace my before photos. I think that the overall cleaning technique gets stuff deeper than what is on the surface of the cloth, and is more effective than cleaning techniques that stop on top. The water in the bucket got pretty yuck, too. We changed it between seats. So you can see that the technique removes a lot of crud, or did for us.
Make sure that you read the instructions for your wet/dry vac. Remove the paper filter if that is what is required by the instructions, and check the instructions and the machine for anything else that keeps water and 240v separated. If you are tempted to use a volatile solvent, eg Kero or Shellite, or ? I would not be inclined to vacuum them off the seats :oops:
Our vac came with a smallish attachment that was pretty close to being perfect for most of this work. However it was open at either end, which was not ideal. I started off using the round end of the hose to go around the edges, and that attachment for the balance. Eventually we used the round hose end for the lot, as it seemed to remove more liquid.
Maybe we could have done more vacuuming, but the stains were out and it was getting cold and dark, so we bolted the seats into the car. They were too wet to sit on early this morning. Had we vacd more, the seats would have been dryer. The seats were fine this arve. When I am sure they are completely dry, I will replace the seat covers.
Here is an after photo - or it would be located here if I could work out how to shift it :-)
There is probably no need to remove the seats - the detailer did not, but it did make the job easy - and they were out of the car anyway :-)
Have fun!