IA-SteveB

A lot if you need filler and want to do both seats (recommended). If you want the complete kit with ongoing maintenance supplies and have some minor crack filling to do on two seats, it is around $250. If you decline the ongoing protector kit it is around $170.

https://www.leathertouchupdye.com/pr...r-repair-kits/

I am certain deckoz is right about there being two reds, AP1 vs AP2. I am going to have to decide whether I just want to order an 89A kit and dye the door cards to match or see if I can find someone who really knows there are two shades of red used on this car. 89A seems to be the AP2 shade of red. You can clearly see the difference in my upper bolster (pic further up in the thread) that I colored 89A in the summer. I am going to re-do this repair with filler and correct the mismatch as my next project since I have a few months of winter left and the seats are in the basement. I do have Clazzio covers sitting around but the red on those is wildly different/brighter to the point of being embarrassing.

Finding the correct Red does kind of suck. If my seats were black I would have already ordered a kit and been doing the same thing Deckoz did.

Deckoz

Like I said man, unscrew the leather door card(not the whole door) and ship it to them. they can match it



you'll spend that much on the kit. but in reality, It comes with enough dye and filler to do this process 3 or so times for the whole car (both seats, arm rest, steering wheel, door cards, shift boot, shift knob)

I think in the grand scheme of things, being able to restore your leather several times for years if needed, is worth the cost, compared to even ONE leather replacement from Honda. As well any aftermarket replacement won't fit as tightly. Leather replacement - for black which isnt discontinued yet, would cost almost 4000 for every piece from Honda. The repair kit cost 169 for two seats with filler.

Sealant comes with this kit. If you wipe your seats down with a damp cloth or steam every couple weeks, and reseal every 6 months, your leather shouldn't ever get clogged with dirt, wax and clothing dye. Keeping your leather clean and free of oils and waxes NOT using conditioners, is whats going to keep your leather soft. Hard leather is from all of those oils and waxes baking in. Once you restore it, your job should be to keep the leather clean, not pack it with oils and waxes again.

So if conditioning is out of the question because you want to avoid packing the pours. No silicates, like Lexol, or lotions or oils. We still have to protect the leather from drying out as we are in a roadster, so we need UV protection. So where does that leave us? Sealer is acrylic based. The protectant they sell is basically a dilluted sealer(for bump coats) with uv resistant additives.

So instead of packing the pours, a dilluted sealer with uv protection, to top up the daily abraised sealer coat, helps maintain the sealant so the dirt/wax and grime doesn't get to the dye/leather. Its the same principals as having wax on paint, the wax protects the urethane clear coat from UV and helps keep dirt/minerals from embedding into the paint.

Think about what oils from organics do to things in the sun... (perfect example is bologna on paint in the sun)

Basically the point I am getting to, is cleanliness is healthier than additives for automotive finishes...

IA-SteveB

Thanks for the explanation on leather care. I will give them a call about sending in my door card. I have 4 months before I need to put the seats back in so I can take my time on this part of the restoration. I don't need them to be perfect but my mismatched upper bolster bothers me to no end. I never even really knew there were two reds until you mentioned it. I just thought the rest of my leather was aged and dirty when it really wasn't. There is definitely an orangish tint to the red most dye sites sell (labeled Honda 89).

IA-SteveB

Just an update on this project. Thanks to Deckoz, I now realize that there are actually three shades of red used on the Honda S2000 over the years. Leather dye manufacturers seem to think that there was only one shade of red for the entire line of the S2000, always calling it "Honda 89" in their color charts. I did end up removing the door card and clipping off some excess from the back of the card. It matched the seat leather perfectly according to my untrained eye. I am sending the sample to the guys at leathertouchupdye.com to have it mixed appropriately. I will update this thread with my repair of the upper bolster and re-dye of the seats hoping that it turns out as good as Deckoz's attempt.

In the last picture of my how-to you can clearly see the difference in red on the upper bolster compared to the rest of the seat. "Honda 89" was used and it has a very noticeable tinge of orange to it compared to the rest of the seat.

hecash

The Automotive Leather folks do not seem to have a kit for the S2000 tan leather. My seats still look quite good from the bolster rebuild that I did in 2012 but I'd like to have a method for cleaning up the vinyl in the future. I'll give them a call to see what they have to say.

I used high-density electronics packaging foam for the rebuild. It has stood up like iron to my amazement.

IA-SteveB

That has held up well. Mine does have that vertical creasing on the outside near the seat adjuster handle like yours.
I'd take Deckoz's suggestion that he had for me. If your door card leather is tan also there is plenty of excess leather on the inside of the door card to clip off. I cut out a small section and sent a photo showing the size of it to see if it was sufficient.
I know mine isn't going to be perfect when I am done but if it looks better then that's all I need for my effort. I don't expect an 82k mile 17 year old car to be perfect but I have always been known for having a car that defies aging my entire life.

IA-SteveB

Just an update to this thread. I just started the repair of the upper bolster this evening. The pictures below show the upper bolster and how it was pitted and cracked. It is only red because I had tried to dye it with the incorrect shade in the summer and had not applied filler like a newbie. Prior to being dyed the pits were all raw leather. The second picture is after the filler coat is applied. You can really see how tatty and perished the bolster was as the filler shows it all.

Before filler. You can clearly see the pits and missing material/cracks even though there is unmatched red dye on top.

Here is the filler in all of the right places. You work it in with the plastic knife and then skim it off. It will go where it is needed. I hadn't sanded it yet. It looks rough here but running a finger over it reveals that it is actually smooth and even with the rest of the leather surface. When it is dyed I think it will look Bob's Uncle.

I will update this thread tomorrow since I will be applying the custom mixed dye I had matched to a scrap of door card leather. I believe it will take three coats to repair the upper bolster and hide the filler, drying each coat between applications. I am just going to dye the bolster only for now just because I am curious how close the match is. The rest of the seat is in good nick so I will do fewer coats on the rest of the seat and then do one coat of sealer over the whole thing in a few days. I have to say this is satisfying work so far but I won't know how good I am until later in the week.

IA-SteveB

Here is a picture of the smoothed out bolster with 5 coats of dye. It actually took more than I had anticipated to hide the white filler. Dabbing the filled sections and then smoothing with a circular motion helped. It looks like a shade lighter right now and raw but it is also not finished and lotioned. I am going to use a bit more filler in a few spots since it was hard to tell whether it was thick enough until dye was applied and showing imperfections. I hid mostly everything but there are a few spots that reveal themselves upon closer inspection. You can fill over dye as the manufacturer indicates. If I can't get "incredibly hard to match red" to blend my plan is to just dye the entire seat making sure that every square inch is cleaned properly so the dye is soaked in evenly. The prospect of dying the whole seat is frightening for the simple fact that surface prep has to be perfect and even then the leather may refuse to accept dye in spots. We shall see. If you were to ask me right now what I will have to do, I will say that both seats need a coat of dye to ensure consistency of color. I did NOT want to have to do that. You people with black seats are lucky. My passenger seat is perfect and requires nothing but may have to be dyed anyway.

IA-SteveB

I did talk with the dye manufacturer and what they had to say made a lot of sense. My door card sample was matched perfectly and I agreed with that. My seat leather is aged and darker from years of treatments and reds naturally darken over time when treated. They recommended stripping off the sealer and applying more dye since reds are a bit translucent by nature. I plan on maybe doing a few more coats and then sealing it again. My hope is that when it comes time to lotion it up that it just naturally darkens and it will probably take some time. That's fine. At least it is smooth now and will come into line gradually.

Deckoz

kinda sounds like what I said with the rest of the seat still having oils and waxes embedded