Morris Minor Owners Club

I found this out by accident when I splashed some paint onto one of my front seats and got a rag with some cellulose thinners to remove it!

The thinners cut through all the grime to reveal clean vinyl. I think it removes a thin layer of vinyl (almost like T cutting paint) so go carefully. On checking the area where I had cleaned off the paint (a week or 2 ago) the vinyl is fine - no cracking or sticky) so give the seat a good clean with a nail brush, dryed it off then went over the entire seat with the rag soaked in thinners, as you rub the seat, the dirt and faded areas clean up well.

It was warm and sunny today so this probably helped to evaporate the thinners quickly - you need to have a good supply of rags as they get dirty and will smear the surface.

When this is done, I washed the seats again to remove any trace of thinners, dryed them and applyed some Autoglym vinyl care cleaner - the vinyl looks like new now

Try this at your own risk though - its probably quite a brutal way to clean seats

First photo is the seat half cleaned - light is not to good, area on left is the cleaned part excluding the centre ribbed area, second photo is the finished seat.

another hard way is a mixture of vanish and washing up liquid scrubbed in. Ive found son of a gun good at shining up seats, they get slippy though, great to see people slidding along your back seat when you go round corners!!!!!

what you need is prepaint wipe, thinners will if used heavy will take off vinyl and be careful if it has pattern(grain) the prepaint isn't as harsh.

james

motherofgod wrote:what you need is prepaint wipe, thinners will if used heavy will take off vinyl and be careful if it has pattern(grain) the prepaint isn't as harsh.

james

Just ordinary panel wipe? that would make sense - as you say you need to watch with the thinners - I was carefull to wipe it off quickly to avoid taking the vinyl grain away.

yes that correct, we used to use it regularly when cleaning off seats, also to get rid of the chinagraph markings when seats had been repaired, I'd used thinners before on a early mini panel and took the pattern off!

Your seats had come up well thou

James

'scuse me, what we need here is the gentle touch, not thinners etc IF you want your seat surfaces to last! Take it from a Concours and Masters winner.... First wash them gently with plain warm water and a cloth if you have let them get v grubby/bought them v grubby. Let them dry in the air on a nice dry not TOO hot day. Then clean with Decosol vinyl cleaner - following the instructions on the bottle. Rinse & dry. Repeat if nec. use an old toothbrush to get dirt out of seams (concours judges know this is where dirt lurks). When dry polish with on of a Gun as per bottle instructions.


Mary

sounds a sensible approach, Mary! thought MoG does have professional experience of the interiors trade, so he too speaketh sooth

A bar of Vanish soap. Try it

I used a bleach solution on the trav back seats, it got rid of the mould anyway..........

wibble_puppy wrote:sounds a sensible approach, Mary! thought MoG does have professional experience of the interiors trade, so he too speaketh sooth

Why thank you. I ain't no concours judge thou.
Have you got a new rubber for van? instead of cloth

James

I tried everything I could think of then someone on Pistonheads reccomended Bilt Hamber Surfex HD, its water based and you mix it to whatever concentration you want, its very very good and removed dirt that bleach etc. would not touch.
The wife now uses it all round the house.

Steve

A bar of Vanish soap. Try it

I would if I could.... I put it down somewhere and now can't find it.....

If you have leather, a bit of egg white will fill scratches well

I cleaned my seats with panel wipe,treated them with a great leather feeding product called Ballistol.Painted the metal with Japlac black and put them in the loft just in case i put them back in again.

10852sm wrote:I tried everything I could think of then someone on Pistonheads reccomended Bilt Hamber Surfex HD, its water based and you mix it to whatever concentration you want, its very very good and removed dirt that bleach etc. would not touch.
The wife now uses it all round the house.

Steve

I would recommend anything made by Bilt Hamber, all their products I've tried have been excellent. They're very friendly on the phone and dispatch immediately on card payment.
Regarding the thinners bit- DO NOT try it on the beigey goldy part of a duotone unless you want to end up with cream coloured vinyl

Not that anyone would be so careless as to get overspray onto vinyl. But, just in case you do. I have used Rain-X wipes with excellent results. Haven't actually used them for 'cleaning' per se though.

Great tips.

Ken

purplebargeken wrote:Not that anyone would be so careless as to get overspray onto vinyl. But, just in case you do. I have used Rain-X wipes with excellent results

Don't you mean you have heard of someone who used Rain-X wipes....
Good tip though!

Errrrr, yeah, it was errr, a friend of mine who told me.

Actually, it was me. Although I discovered it worked when I just grabbed a wipe to use on the glass on my old landy. I noticed some primer overspray and gave it a quick wipe. It came off so easily.
I then had them to hand when a friend brought his Damson 1500 fwd over. He had sprayed a door shut and got a fair bit of paint on the light grey vinyl seat. Wipes used and no more damson/grey seat. Result. Have recommended it to others and it works well without any issues.

i recently cleaned my seats and used (stupidly mind you) very strong caustic soda solution. They came up clean as a whistle and after a good hose down and drying they came up great, even took the nasty paint and grease stains.
though in hindsight, i recommend gloves