[tip_m]

In its past life my E90 was parked outside and one item that suffered from UV damage was the steering wheel. After finding a newly wrapped wheel to replace my stock one decided to see if I can repair the old one and here are the results.

Starting point:



I had some leftover repair kit from Leatherique from many years ago including crack filler and black dye... Tried using the crack filler first using a fine tipped touchup micro brush as well as a more blunt spread and smear method. Unfortunately, while the crack filler was able to fill in the missing leather, the dye started dissolving the filler as soon as I applied it so back to the drawing board.

I had some Permatex leather/vinyl repair kit I had bought a long time ago which included different colored filler materials as well as a mini-iron (aka heat transfer tool) and some leather swab samples with different textures. You apply the filler, use the heat transfer tool to imprint the texture and cure the filler.

Top of the steering wheel had lost most of its texture from usage so I didn’t spend too much time trying to get the perfect match but primarily aimed to make it smooth to touch. For dye application used a terry towel and put on two coats.

It’s a little shinier than before but overall a significant improvement over what it was before and was a fun project to work on during the shelter in place.

[feuer]

Great work!