Franks XKR Story.

[frankc]

Over the last few years of owning a car I have found places like this forum an invaluable source of information and help. My last car was a BMW and I joined the UK forum. On their site was a "projects" forum. When I took out the entire interior and swapped it over, put in memory seats etc I took lots of before and after photos. After selling the Beemer I looked back on my postings and was surprised by the amount of work, questions and answers over the years. Very enlightening. So I have decided to do the same on here, I hope no one minds me blathering on.

So this will be my XKR story. Good or bad.

When I got the XK home one of the first and obvious things to do was give it a good wash. Several coats of wax and a shield. On first washing I was shocked to see the sheer muck coming from my sponge. Obviously I had made my first mistake and had started washing my new toy with a filthy sponge. So I binned it. Got a new sponge from its wrapper and started again. It was not the sponge. These Zircon Blue cars REALLY hide the dirt well. Several washes and paint cleaner later I then polished etc and it looked much better. So my first before and after shots. Ok YOU may not see much difference but honestly it really was VERY DIRTY.

Before


After
The photo has not been manipulated, it really is a shade lighter.

[frankc]

Carpets first. Good vacuum. Took the mats out of the car. I was going to replace them but dealer says he cant get hold of replacements and if he could it would be £110+vat. So I thought whats to be lost? Give them a good clean.

Ok. Done that. Outside drying right now. So lets put up some before's-



Ok,now for the after photo. Taken in full sunlight to show its worst. You cannot really tell from the photo but I can see a marked difference.

Oh and the bit of string on the left is what I used to hand it from our washing line.

[Udtrev]

We know the feeling, we have, in a mad moment, got an elderly Merc 320 CLK

We were cruel and took it to a hand car wash place and got them to scrub her - the cack that came off the roof was a cross between puree'd pistachio and baby puke

the mats were cack but we bunged em in the washing machine and they don't look too bad

I hope your mats scrub up too

Trev

[frankc]

I hope your mats scrub up too Trev

Thanks Trev. Gave them a good scrubbing outside this morning and a really good soaking to rinse them. They have been drying outside all day and are now hanging in the shower to dry off the last bits overnight (dont tell the Mrs)

[frankc]

Been working on the leather. Gave them a good clean and conditioning. However as expected on a car of this age, 2003, there is wear. But I have been working on it as these before/after photos will show.



Not quite finished yet. There are still some lines to get rid of but that will have to wait till summer. The seats look lighter and cleaner now too. The other item with the quite visible difference is the arm rest. Again I will have to colour wash it because the good bits before and now looking a bit shabby in comparison to the just done stuff. What do you think? Looks better doesn't it.

[Udtrev]

They look much better - well done !

[B o B]

Hi Frank, that's very impressive. I especially like how your leather has come up. In your 'before' pic you appear to have lost some of the leather surface on the seat side panel. On your 'after' pic it appears cured. I have a similar worn patch on mine and have cleaned and conditioned using Furniture Clinic's products with excellent results but the mark still shows. Did you use anything else? If so, what was it and if not, what cleaner & conditioner did you use please?

[frankc]

Over the years I have tried many products. The furniture clinics products I am sure are good but far too involved for me. I used Scuffmaster from Gliptone, just google Gliptone. It has the finish and other stuff all incorporated into one product. You simply get a little of the product onto a tiny sponge, supplied, then dab it into the creases. Letting each layer dry for around 20 mins. On really bad stuff you can sandpaper the worst out then use the stuff I mention. Their conditioner and cleaner are very good too and give a lovely leather smell. Their customer relations are cr** but the product is good. I once bought a 1 litre bottle from them to do some seats. The bottle arrived spit and half of it lost. I emailed them but they were just not interested. If it were not such a good product id tell them where to stick it.......... but I am not going to cut off my nose to spite my face

Carpets should be dry by now...... yes carpets 90% there. Posted after picture above.

Oh and the armrest. That was not dirt. It was worn off. So again the scuffmaster stuff re-coloured/painted it. Before you cringe at the word "paint" as far as I know all leather seats are "painted"

[B o B]

Thank you Frank, I'll get onto that this afternoon.

[frankc]

The guy who previously owned this car obviously thought all you had to do was take it into Jaguar and say "service this" and pay over lots of money and get things fixed when they went wrong. It is obvious he never lifted the bonnet. Its going to take me ages and a lot of effort to bring this engine bay up to Frank standards. But today I made a start..

This is what I had to contend with.



and this, believe it or not this is after I removed the worst of the crud. Don't worry though this will gleam eventually....
and after.......... still a LOT of work to do.
If you take a look at the rubber pipes you will see a before/after effect there too.

And after again, still lots to do on this but no where near as bad as it was. At least I feel I am making progress of sorts.

Getting there.