Yes, the mighty Hoover has cleaned many a stinky gooey seat.  My brother's
'85 was an amazing technicolor dirty smelly mess when we limped it into the
drive.  We went at it for 6 hours - Simple Green is the stuff!  I have fond
memories of using a teflon scraper to remove about a 1/2 inch of goo (sugar?
syrup? ) from the tray above the stove.  Makes you wonder how someone could
treat a bus like that.

I have also poured straight Simple Green and blasted Vanagon seats with an
electric power washer and let them dry in the sun to no ill effect.   The
fabric is amazingly resiliant.

Pete
'79 Westy "Aardvark"
'87 Westy "Joe's Van"
WWW.Busesbythebeach.com

On Mon, Aug 18, 2008 at 10:11 PM, Allan Streib <streib@cs.indiana.edu>wrote:

> Mike Miller <mwmiller@CWNET.COM> writes:
>
> > My front seat, cloth, are dirty. I cleaned a small part to test and
> > it didn't clean well and abraded the cloth.
>
> I have a Hoover rug cleaner, they call it a "steam" cleaner but it
> does not use steam, just hot water.  Anyway -- it has an upholstery
> attachment, and I've used it in my van to do both carpet and seats.
> It does a good job, I think.  A rental unit like a Rug Doctor can
> usually be had with an upholstery attachment as well, and might do
> even better.
>
> I use the branded Hoover cleaning solution, and if there are any
> particularly dirty or greasy spots I hit them with a strong degreaser
> and scrub brush first.
>
> This has gotten my carpet and upholstery very close to "new" clean
> (though of course nothing will reverse actual wear of the fabric).
>
> Allan
> --
> 1991 Vanagon GL
>

--