[ScottinSoCal]

So I'm here, 450 miles from home. Tonight about 5:00 PM we started on the project of the new upholstery and the passenger seat is done. It looks mahvelous.

Tomorrow we're doing the driver seat and I'll take pictures so those of you thinking about this can decide if you want to tackle it yourselves or have someone else do it for you. It actually wasn't as bad as I'd expected. Two people, and the right tools (it took a couple of trips to the store to get the right tools) and we had it done with about 3 hours of actual work. 4.5 hours by the clock, but there were breaks and those trips to the store.

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Long term update, with additions from the second upholstery job:
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If you're reading this thread for the first time, read the rest of it before you read this.

When you cut the sides where the seatback release lever goes, DON'T cut an opening as large as the hole. Tension in the new skins will cause it to spread and look bad within weeks. Only make a vertical cut down the middle of the opening. If you're using vinyl, try folding the vinyl back into the hole as you press in the chrome escutcheon. That holds it in place. Leather would probably be too thick and I doubt you could.

Properly fastening the cloth strip around the seat of the new skin is important. It keeps the skin in place in the future. Make sure it's snug, and fasten it directly with the new seat pad, so it isn't trying to stretch.

The type of hog rings you get is important. Don't use the zinc-coated rings. For some reason these not only stain the cloth, they also are rougher and tend to tear it over time. Get the smallest, non-zinc coated rings you can find.

 

[nobby]

So I'm here, 450 miles from home. Tonight about 5:00 PM we started on the project of the new upholstery and the passenger seat is done. It looks mahvelous.

Tomorrow we're doing the driver seat and I'll take pictures so those of you thinking about this can decide if you want to tackle it yourselves or have someone else do it for you. It actually wasn't as bad as I'd expected. Two people, and the right tools (it took a couple of trips to the store to get the right tools) and we had it done with about 3 hours of actual work. 4.5 hours by the clock, but there were breaks and those trips to the store.

Fantastic. Post the pictures, Scott.
Engine mount replacement for seat recovering? Fair trade?
BTW, I got a sunburn yesterday. The season is now official.

 

[ScottinSoCal]

Fantastic. Post the pictures, Scott.

Coming tonight.

Engine mount replacement for seat recovering? Fair trade?

If that's an offer, bring your tools and your skins. Something I know how to do and have done before, traded for something that intimidates me a little? You betcha.

BTW, I got a sunburn yesterday. The season is now official.

Nobby's got sun! Now you just need heat and you're ready to go topless.

 

[nobby]

Nobby's got sun! Now you just need heat and you're ready to go topless.

Heat? 22C is heat here. I've been topless since thursday.

 

[Digmenow]

Heat? 22C is heat here. I've been topless since thursday.

attaboy!
Spent the past 3 days running topless in the Balt/DC area. It's gonna be near 80 today. What to do...what to do?

 

[Digmenow]

attaboy!
Spent the past 3 days running topless in the Balt/DC area. It's gonna be near 80 today. What to do...what to do?

Frickin' idiot!
If I had spent less time reading and posting this morning, there would have been time to transfer the 'needs of the day' from the Avalon to the 107, drop the top and get to work with time to spare. Instead, it was a 25 mile dash to work, arriving just in time. The dash thermometer said upper 80's on the way home this afternoon.

Instead, I took it out this evening to pick up dinner and then later on, down the road for a haircut.

I took the looooooooooooooooooooooong way home.

 

[ScottinSoCal]

OK, here we go. First, apologies all around for the quality of the pictures. You can only do so much with a phone camera, you know? These are the instructions for the driver side. The passenger side is a little different to remove, but it should be obvious.

On the end of the seat mounting rails are black plastic caps. To get them off, slip a flat bladed screwdriver under the top and release the catches holding it on the top and the bottom. Slide the seat all the way back and use a 13mm wrench to remove the front two bolts. Slide the seat all the way forward to expose the back of the rails. The screws holding the adjustment are for a flat blade, but they're big. Really big. We went to Sears and bought a screwdriver set designed for an impact wrench with a #4 phillips head and a big-ass flat blade. It worked perfectly in a 1/2" drive rachet. On each rail there's a screw in the adjustment wheel and another two screws under the rail about 1/3 of the way to the front. You only have to take out the screw from the wheel and the bottom screw from the assembly further up the rail. While you're at Sears, pick up a hex bit set designed for a 1/2" drive. You'll need it later. If you get one for a 3/8" drive, you'll break the ratchet handle. Ask me how I know.

Once you have all the screws out, lift the seat out of the car. It'll want to catch on the carpet for the center console, so you have to work it a bit. Also watch for the plug to the seat belt buzzer. It looks like this once you get the seat out:

With the seat out, turn it upside down and hold the seat adjustment down (up with the seat installed, but the seat is upside down, remember?) and slide the mounting rails off to the front of the seat. They're likely be be grunged up with years of crap, so they may be difficult to remove. Once you have them off, set them so you'll know which side is which to go back on. Also remove the teflon slides that go in them and make sure you keep track of which side went on which, and what goes on top and bottom. The bottom slides are wider on one side. Then turn the seat on the side so the adjustment wheel is pointing up.

To get the wheel off, use a small flat blade screwdriver and pry up in the middle of the wheel. There are four catches spaced around the wheel. When it's removed, it'll look like this:

Again using a flat blade screwdriver, turn the inner metal wheel counterclockwise and the wheel will be released. Gently pry the chrome trim pieces off.

This is where the hex bit set comes in. Remove the two hex bolts on the side hardware with the hex bits. They aren't easy to get out. The bit you want looks like this:

Then use the #4 phillips bit to remove the 4 phillips head screws. They're also very difficult to remove. The 1/2" ratchet driver will be handy. There are three small clips, all similar construction, that hold the handle for the seat release and the seat rail grabs. The rail grabs are down in the bottom of the seat, the seat release is in the back of the seat. The process to remove them is the same for all. Use a flat blade screwdriver to pry up (gently!) on the top piece, then slide them forward and off the pin. It'll look like this:

Take off the chrome trim piece around the seat release handle, and the two plastic trim pieces where the seat release cables come out:

Be very careful with these plastic pieces. They're old and brittle and they break easily. Last, remove the seat catches at the bottom. If you look closely, you'll see the top has two flat spots. You can use a crescent wrench to unscrew these from the seat bottom.

Now you're ready to remove the old upholstery. Rip it off. Release some of that frustration you built up by being slow and cautious up to this point. There are a lot of hog rings - little metal rings that pierce the old upholstery and hold it onto various springs and catches on the bottom of the seat. As you're tearing the old upholstery off, note how the material is folded over and tucked in around the bottom of the seat in the seat back. You'll need to be able to recreate those folds and tucks as you install the new upholstery. If you bought a new seat pad, remove the hog rings holding it to the seat as well. I do recommend a new seat pad. Once you're finished you'll have a bare metal seat bottom sitting there. Be careful at the back of the seat bottom. There's a metal rod there that you'll need to reinstall the seat bottom upholstery. Pull it out and set it aside. Straighten it out if you've bent it when removing.

Your new seat pad should have a flap designed to tuck over the springs and seat frame. Slide it on and start putting your new hog rings into place. If you can't find hog rings and a set of hog ring pliers at a local upholstery store, check with a fence supply company. They use hog rings for fencing as well as upholstery. They make different gauges, so find one that's fairly small, with sharp edges to pierce the vinyl or leather of your new upholstery.

Once the pad is secured in place, turn the seat bottom upholstery inside out. You should have a flap of cotton/canvas material sewn into the seat bottom. Lift that into place first and secure it to the springs. This will help keep your seat positioned. Then slide the metal rod into the loop at the back of the seat bottom and fold it over onto the springs. Use the hog rings to secure it to the springs. Have someone sit on the seat bottom to compress it, lift the front of the new seat upholstery, and fold and tuck it into the slot. If you can't get it to go all the way down in, a flat blade screwdriver is handy.

Work your way around the bottom of the seat, working from the front out to the sides, and tuck the new seat material all the way around. At this point you can reinstall the hardware on the seat bottom, reversing the steps you took to remove it. When you're finished it should look something like this:

This post is getting long, so the next post will tackle the seat back.

 

[ScottinSoCal]

Take out the single phillips head screw at the bottom on the back of the seat back. That piece is pressboard, so be careful with it, but there's nothing holding it in. Just pull down and out to remove it. If you haven't changed your seat color and it's in good condition, you don't need to do anything but set it aside and have it ready for reassembly.

Now rip the old upholstery off the seat back. No rods to worry about here, just get it all off. The seat back pad doesn't wear as fast as the seat bottom pad, so you be the judge on whether you need a new one or not. I didn't.

Apply the new upholstery skins to the seat backs the same way you did the seat bottoms. Start with the bottom and hog ring it in place and then move to the top. Leave the sides for last. To get the top in, tuck the extra length of padding up, then fold the material over and tuck it into the latches there. Once the top is in place, tuck the sides in. Be careful to avoid bunching on the sides. It may take realigning the sides a couple of times before you get the look you want. Now you're ready to cut out for the seat release trim and the seat cable trim. Mark the bolt holes in the side so you know where the bolts go. Reassemble everything and test the seats out.

You'll probably need to adjust the seat latch hooks (the big bolt things you took off with the crescent wrench) to get them to the right height. They need to stick far enough out that they catch the seat latch, but not so far out that they interfere with the seat hardware. Once they're in the right place, tighten the ring nut down so they don't move.

And you're done. Put the seats back into the car and enjoy your new seats and that new car smell you've just installed.

 

[dugald]

Excellent contribution, Scott.

 

[nobby]

Nice job Scott. Did you, uh, get around to the carpets?

 

[ulflei]

Great job Scott my kudos to you.
I did the same thing ,but I paid an upholstery shop $1200 including material.

 

[ScottinSoCal]

Did you, uh, get around to the carpets?

Nope, carpets will come later. Taking the seats out is pretty easy, so it's no big deal.

 

[450sl_in_MN]

Scott,
Thanks! This was perfect. Saved my stubborn A$% alot of time after I began my project with the, I will figure it out method, only to come to my senses and visit here.

 

[KTT]

Help, Scott!

Okay, so it took me a bit longer to do one seat than it did for you to finish both, but I'm cool with that -- definitely in a bit over my head, but it's worked out pretty well so far.

The seat cover is pulling a little bit at the top of the bolster; I think this is caused by the metal loops on the back of the seat cover that you pull through the slot in the seat pad and secure with those little white plastic pegs. What do you think I should do? (Sorry the pictures are a little iffy, you can just see the little plastic piece in the second one.)

Thanks.

 

[KTT]

Looks a bit purple under the flourescent lights, doesn't it?

 

[ScottinSoCal]

Okay, so it took me a bit longer to do one seat than it did for you to finish both, but I'm cool with that

Well, I had two people working on it, so we're about even.

The seat cover is pulling a little bit at the top of the bolster; I think this is caused by the metal loops on the back of the seat cover that you pull through the slot in the seat pad and secure with those little white plastic pegs. What do you think I should do?

My car doesn't have those tabs or loops. There's two approaches you could take. You could decide it adds character and live with it, or you could loosen the ring so it doesn't pull so tight. If you live with it, you probably won't for long - as the material stretches and gets familiar with the shape of your seats it'll relax into shape by itself.

 

[KTT]

Well, I had two people working on it, so we're about even.

Actually, I did have some help, but he's really just a supervisor and always seems to get distracted by other projects and the CEO.

 

[KTT]

Thanks, Scott

Thanks for the great advice, and (more importantly) the inspiration to tackle something like this myself. All told, it took me about 14 hours to do both seats, but I probably saved about a grand by doing so and learned a lot along the way (like, no rust under the seats). At times, I felt like I'd gotten in a bit over my head, but I think they turned out pretty well, the car's back together in time to commute on Monday, the smell is gone and everything feels a bit tighter and quieter. The seats on the '86 560SL are different, perhaps easier in some respects than your car, but I was able to manage with your instructions and even removed the huge screws/hex bolts with a 3/8ths inch drive without breaking it. New seat pads are definitely the way to go; after doing all the work of getting the seats apart, it would have felt really strange putting new covers on old, smelly pads. I've got a few more items to finish (tucking in that second back panel is going to have to wait until I've recovered my patience). Here's a picture of the new upholstery. Thanks, again.

 

[nobby]

Good job, KTT.

 

[ScottinSoCal]

Here's a picture of the new upholstery. Thanks, again.

I'm glad you got some use out of it. It looks really good.