Morris Minor Owners Club

What's the best thing to treat leather seats with to stop them drying out and cracking? Could I use clear shoe polish?

i have used leather saddle soap as used by people in the horsey set for treating their saddles,worked well in a Rover P6.

I used Saddle soap on the Javelin seats, it cleaned the leather and fed it a treat, available from your nearest Equestrian dealer (!!). I also put a light coat of a decent dubbin on, it takes a while to soak in though.

I used hoof oil on the tortoise a few years ago made him look very smart!

I used hoof oil on the tortoise a few years ago made him look very smart

LOL
That sounds like The sort of inuendo you'd use when asking for something in a chemist.

They is a little known magic product called ballistol http://www.ballistol.com/uses.htm
This is the moast amazing product I have ever known. Im a engineer and have used it for years and swear by it. It’s a lubricant , penetrating oil, steriliser, you name it and ballistol will do it and do it better than all others. Look on the web site and see for your self. This is what it can do for leather

Leather that is frequently exposed to rain or high humidity will become hard and brittle, if not treated adequately. Ballistol will keep all smooth leathers soft.

Ballistol effectively protects leather against the impact of water, insects and fungi. Its use is recommended for carrying slings, belts, scabbards, holsters, boots, saddles, bridles, baseball gloves, saddle bags and motorcycle clothes made of leather.

If properly processed, leather will contain acidic residues from tannic acid. Ballistol will form a permanent chemical compound with these residues within the leather which will make the leather virtually impermeable to water. Handguns, in particular police handguns, are mostly carried and even stored in leather holsters. If not out of stainless steel, or chrome or nickel plated, handguns may develop corrosion in the areas where they have direct contact with the leather. By treating the inside of the holster with Ballistol, the acidic residues from tannic acid will be completely neutralized and this source of corrosion will be eliminated.

Second the ballistol, always have a bottle in the gun cabinet for that purpose.
Ive pondered if it might have use as a dashpot oil or even to treat scabby the travs wood.
Mate of mine in germany tells me its a sworn treatment for dry skin problems too !

This product is unbelievable its good for everything it really is top class.

when i urgently needed a replacement engine i had a spare but it had been stood for 9 year. I sprayed Ballistol into the spark plug holes and slowly turned the engine with the starting handle and kept adding ballistol until it had done two revolutions. cleaned the carb out with ballistol assembled all the auxillaries after cleaning with bally and it started first time and ran ace. I can understand the skin problem bit, farmers use it on cows udders to stop them gettig sore and also use it to kill tics

Hello
New to this forum and found it through a search as I am considering restoring my Dads old Minor.
I have been trying to find Ballistol for some time now but the link to the site above is dead. I did a search on Google and found the link below and they have now supplied me.
www.ballistoluk.co.uk
The best thing was that these chaps are only a few miles away from me.
Will no doubt be back on another thread if and when I take on the restoration.

Stuart

out of interest, will ballistol help restore leather? i mean, my seats are cracked and split and the seams, but they add character to the car, so i don't want them recovered. i just want to give the leather "life", and then have them re-stitched. but i need somethng good...could ballistol be the thing to use??

There is a product made by Woolies which revives leather. Spray it on , leave it and the buff up. They do it in loads of colours so it helps restore the colour as well. From memory its about £16 ish a can but you dont need a lot. I used it on our split screen leather back seats.

My wife has a genuine ww2 flying jacket that was a bit tired and she used the ballistol on that after testing a small area first as recomended by the people at BallistolUK and it did a super job so it seems to be good for old leather. She then proceeded to do everything leather that she could find. Take care with light coloured leather as it will darken it slightly.

Stuart

Yes, ballistol will sort your leather seat out. The only draw back if this is one: It's the Smell it's a bit like smelly feet. But on the plus side, it doesn’t stay. It subsides fairly quickly. In addition, if you are in a confined space it tends to make you cough a little. However, it is really a good quality top end product.

thank you overider, i will order some at the weekend. in addition, i was explaining my seats in the last post i wrote...note to self...signature picture has a pretty good pic of seats! idiot! haha!

get some kiefer saddle cream its good dtuff for leather

callyspoy wrote:thank you overider, i will order some at the weekend. in addition, i was explaining my seats in the last post i wrote...note to self...signature picture has a pretty good pic of seats! idiot! haha!

Like the wheels on the blue 4 door moggy

im confused...

I don't know about balli stuff but I would recommend Hyde food! it's a cream that you pile on to the seat and it will absorb it(makes it much softer)
Remember leather is a skin and needs moisteriser!

.As for putting some colour back use a shoe cream like tuxen, for callyspoy you could make your seats red again, I know it works as I've done it on jaguars!

James

For re-colouring the seats, I used the car polish with the coloured pigment in. (Colour match) or something like that. The type that covers minor scratches. I just wiped it onto my faded red seat and left it to soak in and dry. After a couple of days I gave the seat a good rub down and it did the trick.