What I thought would take a few weeks has taken a few months and a grand total of about 50 hours of time. As I'm a software engineer, this was not economical, but I became obsessed.

Before I get on with it, for those of you who've PMed me about the leatherseats.com install tricks and tips, I haven't forgotten, but I've been very busy and that write up will take some time. If the moderators don't move this thread to detailing, I'll go ahead and do it, otherwise I'm going to have to pass.

Our SC400 is a '95 black with 194K miles on it. I've taken very good care of it mechanically have taken lot of care with the exterior. From the outside it looks like a new car. I've done all the usual things like cleaning the plastic headlight lenses so they aren't yellow. The list goes on.

This *was* my wife's daily driver until we had our child. She practically lives out of her cars. Only a month would go by before it filled up with trash, coffee cups, papers, you name it. I can't tell you how many times she spilled coffee.

Here is a gallary of before shots:

Note, these are 3000x2000 photos in their original size. When you click on the gallary, you'll get something much smaller, but if you want to see the detail and horror of it all, view some of these in their full size.
http://alana.smugmug.com/Other/sc400.../263172_gDQ8zK

Notice all of the dirt, stains, scuffs, scratches, cracked leather, etc.

First I started off with a complete interior disassembly. I took everything out exept the dash.

I removed all seats front and rear, steering wheel, center console and surround pieces, door panels, various interior panels, and finally the carpet.

In all, here is the inventory of stuff I bought:

1) leatherseats.com interior without any special options as I was after stock look. ($600 delieverd).
2) Steering wheel sent out to American Stitches. Took them 6 weeks but they gave me an extra $80 off. The steering wheel is the one thing I didn't keep stock. I had them do the LS400 wood conversion. Total cost was $320, but that was because of their goof up.
3) New OEM lexus badged carpet matts for the SC400 ($107 delivered).
4) Ignition keyhole surround ($2.26).
5) Console surround with integrated flip down/fold out cup holder. ($60 something).
6) Grill cloth from some little internet fabric shop. The link is on a dead computer. If you really want it, PM me and I'll try and track it down. I found some stuff online that had a picture that was almost a perfect match. See the photo in the gallary below to judge for your self. The yard was like $12 and I still have most of it left.

Items either cleaned or repaired:
1)The floor matts were salvagable. I cleaned them in a jacuzzi bathtub with simple green. They came out pretty good, but I was after *NEW* looking, not pretty good, so I ordered new floor matts from Sewell.
2) Turn signal and wiper stalk boots. These had oozed an amber excretion over the years and it was caked on the boots. I ended up using a razor blade to carefully scrape it all off followed by a cleaning with acetone and then finally Vinylex. The end result is amazing. They look absolutely new.
3) Various scuffs on wood trim clearcoat. Turns out these were easily dispatched with a rubbing compound followed by a clearcoat polish just as if I were taking away minor scuffs on the paint.
4) Carpet was removed and cleaned with heavy duty carpet cleaning detergent and a carpet cleaner. Allthough the floormatts couldn't be made perfect, the carpet itself was completely cleaned of any hint of stain and looked absolutely new afterwards. Good thing too otherwise I would've ordered a whole new carpet and I'll bet that would have been pricey.
5) Door upholstery was the same as the carpet and completely cleaned up as you can see from the pictures.
6) Door panel armrest. I didn't replace this as the condition was already very good. I tried the Softscrub trick and this worked perfectly followed up by Lexol PH leather cleaner and then Lexol leather conditioner.
7) The door panel leather was also nearly perfect. It had gotten slightly stiff and fairly dirty but nothing even close to how bad the seats were. The softscrub trick worked perfect on these as well and they now look new.
8) Seat back storage nets. Even though they sagged, there was still a lot of elasticity left, so when I had the seats appart, I was able to get the bracket off cut off the excess, pull tight, and slip the new knot in. See the photos to judge for yourself.
9) Seats. This was the longest hardest part. The leatherseats.com covers attachments and lift wires very drastically from OEM and many modifications were needed to get a good fit. I believe the fit I achieved was far better than most who've done this themselves. Still, it was a hell of a bargain when compared to OEM.
10) Many interior pieces had very tough stains that wouldn't come off with vinylex, soap and water, or any other cleaners. This is where Mr Clean Magic eraser saved the day and removed the toughest stains and scuffs that nothing else would. I discovered that vinylex instead of water with Magic Eraser worked even better requiring almost no vigorous scrubbing.

Here is the after gallary: (note: there's an occasional fly posing. I couldn't get them to go away )

http://alana.smugmug.com/Other/sc400.../268284_st35Gd

 

Hmm this reminds me of something

The heck with mods 2

and something else too

The hell with mods

 

Wow, great work!!!!

 

Funny I remember both of those threads.

You reminded me though that I didn't have any exterior pictures, so I just threw some into the after shot gallary.

At this point, I don't think my SC400 needs anything now. I just did caps, rotors, wires, and plugs. Recently did all the brakes and all fluids. Just installed new tires yesterday (not in the new photos). Nothing else is due. Nothing is broken...not even a little. Everything is just about perfect. Usually there's been at least something that needed attention, but not now.

The cool thing is it has 194K miles and looks nearly brand new inside and out. I need to get some pictures of the engine bay. I spent 4 hours detailing it after the plugs, caps, rotors, and wires. It started with pressure washing the covers when they were off the car, then I vinylexed them, then I started in on the entire engine bay. Most of it was detailed stuff getting into nooks and crannies that you don't really see. I don't know what my obession is with getting the stuff I can't see. It's like I can see it because I know it's there so it bugs me even if I'm not looking at it

 

Dammit you guys gotta help me clean my car Looks tops buddy good stuff

 

That looks great. Glad to see you have not had to resort to installing a front license plate, though it's getting harder and harder to get away with it in California.

Did you / do you plan to use some clearcoat polish on the shifter panel and ashtray? From the pic you posted (below) it looks like the stereo and climate control panels are a bit shinier than the other two, but maybe it's just the lighting and camera angle.

What's that black box to the right of the key?

 

It's just the light. If you look closely, there are other photos where the stereo and climate panels look matt and the shifter surround looks glossy. The reason those two panels look shinny in this case is because the flash reflected directly back while the shifter panel points up so it remained matt in that photo.

Those items were only cleaned. Note: I only used the clearcoat polish on some very fine scuffs on the wood trim and nothing else.

 

wow, if you were to sell your car before and after. i think you just increase your cars value probly by 3000 or so.

 

Care to do my car next?

 

awesome!

Great job

 

TIGHT!

CEO

 

Great work. You should be proud of yourself.

 

Wished I could have fixed the cracked registers, but it would have been $400+ to fix something that will just crack again in fairly short order. I was still tempted.

I guess it would be more accurate to call this a 95% restoration because there are flaws, just not many.

 

Looks great man,

I have been working on mine for a couple of weeks, going from tan to black. Yours looks great, hope mine turns out half-way close to that.

Good job man,
Peace

 

Good work, the difference is like night and day