How To: Leather Steering Wheel Refinish
Lets start this little adventure.
Total time to completion: Approx 6 hours
Tools: Steering Wheel, Leather Dye, Acrylic paint (not enamel), 400-600 grit and 1200-2000 grit (depending on what you have laying around) sand paper, phillips head screw driver, mr. clean magic eraser, leather cleaning solution.
Note: All items to complete this project can be found at Walmart.
Step 1: Find a donor. I was lucky to find this S13 wheel w/ cruise control at the junk yard the other day. On first glance, it looked a little rough, but I knew that it wouldnt take too much effort to getting it looking respectable.
Here it is upon inital cleanup and after it dried. Yikes!
Step 2: Collect all the crap together that you need and strip the steering wheel. Take out the cruise button if you have it, masking here is for bums. we want to respray the entire thing nice and even for uniform color and sheen.
Step 3: Clean the wheel. I used a Mr. Clean magic eraser sponge, and it does wonders getting all the grime and crap out of the wheel. After that, I used McGuires leather prep spray to clean it off more, then let it completely dry.
Step 4: Give the wheel a light sanding all over to get out any rough patches. I used 400 grit, but 600 would be better. i was pulling the grain up slightly with 400. Finish up any rough spots with anything between 1200-2000. I used 400 and 2000 because thats what walmart had available for me when i went shopping. The wheel should be looking pretty ugly at this point, but feeling rather nice. There are 2 points to this. 1 is to give the leather a uniform finish, the 2nd is to rub away any existing top coat. The entire wheel should change color.
Step 5: Clean the wheel again, and re-check for rough spots. If you feel like you are pulling up grain and getting things worse, let it dry a little more and hit it with finer sand paper, with a lighter touch. For a little while, leather may "roll" off, but thats surface crap and it stops pretty quick.
cleaned up after another rub down
Step 6: Dye the leather. By now, all that sheen should be long gone so the leather can now absorb the dye evenly. I used Kiwi Leather Dye, found at the shoe department in Walmart. Shake and apply, then let dry.
Step 7: Repeat Step 6. Eventually the Kiwi stuff builds up a little and begins to fill the pulled up grain and stuff really nicely. Just do this until you are happy with the result. Just be sure to do the ENTIRE WHEEL EVERY TIME. This will keep a nice uniform color.
Step 8: Wipe down the now dry and dyed wheel with a microfiber cloth. this is important to remove any lint, and help smooth the surface for the next step.
Step 9: Begin applying the clear acrylic. Enamels are hard and are brittle, avoid Acrylic Enamel. The Rustoleum pictured here works just fine. I picked up a gloss and matte.
imagur
I put down 2 coats of gloss first, then 4 coats of matte. I waited 15 min inbetween coats. Ambient temp was around 70F. Came out pretty dang nice.
Step 10: Let all of this dry completely. When its good and dry, wipe it down with a dry microfiber cloth until it feels "right." Reassemble and you are done. I'm going to wait a week to be sure everything flashed completely before putting it in the car, but I know given the materials used for the refinish, this will be a durable job that will last quite some time, and can be repeated if necessary.
Finished Product:
Enjoy your beautiful leather wheel, all that hard work is over so pat yourself on the back. Best of all, it FEELS just like a leather wheel should... all leathery and fresh. Total cost for everything including the steering wheel was less than $50.
Total time to completion: Approx 6 hours
Tools: Steering Wheel, Leather Dye, Acrylic paint (not enamel), 400-600 grit and 1200-2000 grit (depending on what you have laying around) sand paper, phillips head screw driver, mr. clean magic eraser, leather cleaning solution.
Note: All items to complete this project can be found at Walmart.
Step 1: Find a donor. I was lucky to find this S13 wheel w/ cruise control at the junk yard the other day. On first glance, it looked a little rough, but I knew that it wouldnt take too much effort to getting it looking respectable.
Here it is upon inital cleanup and after it dried. Yikes!
Step 2: Collect all the crap together that you need and strip the steering wheel. Take out the cruise button if you have it, masking here is for bums. we want to respray the entire thing nice and even for uniform color and sheen.
Step 3: Clean the wheel. I used a Mr. Clean magic eraser sponge, and it does wonders getting all the grime and crap out of the wheel. After that, I used McGuires leather prep spray to clean it off more, then let it completely dry.
Step 4: Give the wheel a light sanding all over to get out any rough patches. I used 400 grit, but 600 would be better. i was pulling the grain up slightly with 400. Finish up any rough spots with anything between 1200-2000. I used 400 and 2000 because thats what walmart had available for me when i went shopping. The wheel should be looking pretty ugly at this point, but feeling rather nice. There are 2 points to this. 1 is to give the leather a uniform finish, the 2nd is to rub away any existing top coat. The entire wheel should change color.
Step 5: Clean the wheel again, and re-check for rough spots. If you feel like you are pulling up grain and getting things worse, let it dry a little more and hit it with finer sand paper, with a lighter touch. For a little while, leather may "roll" off, but thats surface crap and it stops pretty quick.
cleaned up after another rub down
Step 6: Dye the leather. By now, all that sheen should be long gone so the leather can now absorb the dye evenly. I used Kiwi Leather Dye, found at the shoe department in Walmart. Shake and apply, then let dry.
Step 7: Repeat Step 6. Eventually the Kiwi stuff builds up a little and begins to fill the pulled up grain and stuff really nicely. Just do this until you are happy with the result. Just be sure to do the ENTIRE WHEEL EVERY TIME. This will keep a nice uniform color.
Step 8: Wipe down the now dry and dyed wheel with a microfiber cloth. this is important to remove any lint, and help smooth the surface for the next step.
Step 9: Begin applying the clear acrylic. Enamels are hard and are brittle, avoid Acrylic Enamel. The Rustoleum pictured here works just fine. I picked up a gloss and matte.
imagur
I put down 2 coats of gloss first, then 4 coats of matte. I waited 15 min inbetween coats. Ambient temp was around 70F. Came out pretty dang nice.
Step 10: Let all of this dry completely. When its good and dry, wipe it down with a dry microfiber cloth until it feels "right." Reassemble and you are done. I'm going to wait a week to be sure everything flashed completely before putting it in the car, but I know given the materials used for the refinish, this will be a durable job that will last quite some time, and can be repeated if necessary.
Finished Product:
Enjoy your beautiful leather wheel, all that hard work is over so pat yourself on the back. Best of all, it FEELS just like a leather wheel should... all leathery and fresh. Total cost for everything including the steering wheel was less than $50.
Last edited by zeneffect
on 2014-02-25
at 01-41-21.
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