King Ranch Seats Need Help

[jnewburry]

Hi all,

I bought an older f350 King Ranch model with seats that need some help. They are 7 years old and faded and a little dry. So far I have just applied a few treatments of Lexol conditioner, and that has seemed to restore some color and oils to the leaher. I am wondering if i might need to try to dye it again to get that darker tan look, I am also not sure what to do for a finish on them? Wax? I know very little about upholstery leathers.

Thank you,

jim

[BondoBobCustomSaddles]

Hi JM, well I have some info for you on those seats. First, I was a seat system engineer for Lear Corp back when those seat were developed and made. There were several leather suppliers that were used to supply the original hides for the prototypes and eventually the production seats. Given the age of the vehicle it is likely that they were supplied by Siegle of California. There are only a few high end vehicles made in America that actually use Top Grain Hides for their seats. The King Ranch version is one of them, the Harley Truck and other specialty type vehicles are the others. All the others use second split with a grain pressed on it and then a urathane top coat, they also do not make the whole cover out of leather. In a lot of the panels on the seat cover they are using special high grade vinyl, hence the words "leather seating surfaces" in the advertising. In some cases the vinyl actually has better wear characteristics and is used in high wear areas by design. Back to your particular seats, the likelyhood is they do not have a urathane coating on them. Best suggestion is, however; that you pick a flap that does not show and do your testing on that. You can reach up under the front seat where the cover goes down and under the seat pan and you will find that it is attached with a plastic clip strip to the seat pan edge. If you take the strip and roll it rearward it will come off and the flap will pull out forward to give you a good piece of leather to experiment with that will not show when you re-install it. Bear in mind at this juncture the best thing you can do is use a non-oily reconditioner as you do not want it to end up on your pants! Hope that helps. If you need any other info just send me a note.

Bondo Bob

[jnewburry]

Thanks for the information and history lesson, very interesting.

jim

Hi JM, well I have some info for you on those seats. First, I was a seat system engineer for Lear Corp back when those seat were developed and made. There were several leather suppliers that were used to supply the original hides for the prototypes and eventually the production seats. Given the age of the vehicle it is likely that they were supplied by Siegle of California. There are only a few high end vehicles made in America that actually use Top Grain Hides for their seats. The King Ranch version is one of them, the Harley Truck and other specialty type vehicles are the others. All the others use second split with a grain pressed on it and then a urathane top coat, they also do not make the whole cover out of leather. In a lot of the panels on the seat cover they are using special high grade vinyl, hence the words "leather seating surfaces" in the advertising. In some cases the vinyl actually has better wear characteristics and is used in high wear areas by design. Back to your particular seats, the likelyhood is they do not have a urathane coating on them. Best suggestion is, however; that you pick a flap that does not show and do your testing on that. You can reach up under the front seat where the cover goes down and under the seat pan and you will find that it is attached with a plastic clip strip to the seat pan edge. If you take the strip and roll it rearward it will come off and the flap will pull out forward to give you a good piece of leather to experiment with that will not show when you re-install it. Bear in mind at this juncture the best thing you can do is use a non-oily reconditioner as you do not want it to end up on your pants! Hope that helps. If you need any other info just send me a note.

Bondo Bob