cigarette tar?

[2502]

i'm looking at picking up a burban tomorrow, sadly a newer body style than i wanted. but, doesn't look like they've EVER bothered to clean the interior, or empty the ashtray in the past how ever many years that they've owned it. the interior is disgusting, and there's some stains on the leather that i'm guessing are from cigarette tar. how do i get this crap off of the door panels and such in there? it's a tan color, and there's a very visible layer of scuzz built up all over the place... anything i can use to clean it that won't damage the already nasty interior?

[78 Chevyrado]

I use 409 on everything like that, works excellent.

[got2haul]

I have found that Armor-all cleaning wipes clean most any automotive surface very thoroughly.  You can get them at Target fairly inexpensively.

[fitz]

Simple Green works for me. 

[red4wd]

I have had great luck using baby wipes plus it leaves a nice smell.

[2502]

i got the burb today, and after 2 hours, i only got the carpet vacuumed, and the passenger front seat, and passenger 2nd row seat cleaned. oh and the passenger side door panel. i used purple power, but the carpet is trashed pretty much. in sincerely thought the interior was tan, come to find out, it's grey. wow.

as you can see, one seat was cleaned, the other i didn't get to. i got so aggravated with thsi thing, i got a bucket and a scrub brush, soaked it with purple power, and then scrubbed with a bucket of soap and water.

[Irish_Alley]

cigarette tar my but thats some nasty stuff. the out side looks good but the inside man

[beastie_3]

Nothing like a little elbow grease. Or a lot! ha. Replacement carpet wont be hard to find. The headliner is what is going to be hard to get that smell out. Looks like your coming along on cleaning it though.

[2502]

oh it's gonna be a lot. ironically, i'm really against smoking and i have been my whole life. all my uncles died from lung cancer, lost my grandfather to it as well, and i used to get beat for stealign their cigarettes and throwing them away as a kid. sadly on their death beds they've all managed to apologize for not letting me stop them... so i figured as a kid, i'm never smoking cuz i'm not going to get cancer.

ha. got it at 20. but i dont' smoke. and also ironically enuff, at the stage where i'm at during my treatment, the next course for the cancer to spread to from my thyroid would be to my lungs. how the heck does that play out? hopefully i'll be fine. i got more body scans in july and another radiation dose scheduled for then. i'm hoping they find very little tissue left over so i dont have to actually be confined to a plastic saran wrapped hospital room this time. 

so today i'm off to finish ceaning that foul thing. wish me luck.

[Captkaos]

That is nasty.  At least it is "leather" (seating surface only) and easy to clean.  My 90 Burb carpet was the same.  It looks brown tool.
I used Simple Green and Power Clean.   I can get you carpet for it.

[Grover 1]

I wonder what the guys lungs looked like?

[2502]

That is nasty.  At least it is "leather" (seating surface only) and easy to clean.  My 90 Burb carpet was the same.  It looks brown tool.
I used Simple Green and Power Clean.   I can get you carpet for it.

i'm frustrated with this thing. my gf went pretty nazi on it today and got it cleaned out pretty good. i'm actually amazed i was just gonna replace the whole interior. now i'll just probably do the carpet if that and the two front seats.

it was so disgusting, that we purple powered the whole thing. sprayed it on the trim, and literally, the tar was running down in its pissy brownish color. i dont smoke, never have and this is like, i can't even describe how it makes my skin crawl. i can't fathom people doing this.

first thigns first, those tail lights had to go. so i just put an ad on craiglist offering a trade for a stock pair, done deal, 10 minutes later, at 1am last night, a guy emailed me and came out this afternoon to swap. gladly. i hate those cheap honda civic looking wannabe chrome pieces of crap.

2nd, we started on the interior. britt made it a project of her own, told me to just go change my oil and check my air filter and get that outta the way. so i basically ended up running between the house and auto zone all afternoon to fetch her the stuff she wanted.

we put about another 3hrs into it, the very back needs done, she wants to take the seats out and finish it. so we'll do that later, we lost daylight and gave up to get some food.

rear barn door:



after



2nd row:













she even scrubbed the seat belts for me with blue coral.  the kid loves the truck.

now my headache begins with the brake lights, i can't figure out what's wrong, i called the seller, of course they're not going to answer. the brake lights do not come on for any reason, none of them. tail lights reverse, etc all work fine. brakes flicker intermittently, but for the most part, do not work. i assume they dumped this so cheap so fast cuz it's not going to pass inspection til that's fixed, and there's obv a lick n stick in the window. everything seems sound for the most part tho, they just hadn't changed the oil in who knows how long. any ideas on the brake lights?

[beastie_3]

Check the brake switch on the pedal. Maybe its gooped up with tar too! Do your turn signals work good? What about your center high mount light? (3rd brake light).