Just purchased back and front seat upholstery to match original. Thought it would be an easy thing for me to do on the weekend. Got the passenger side seat off and now I am stuck as far as how the hog rings work and how to proceed. I am afraid I am going to ruin the seat upholstery I just bought.

Has anyone done this? :scratch:

 

Seat upholstery isn't what I would call "easy", but it is do-able. Just plan to have some blisters by the time you're done.

First step is to lay the new upholstery out in the sun (on a sunny day). It needs to be nice and warm to be pliable. For small jobs, if you work quickly, you CAN get by with throwing the covers in the dryer for 5-10 minutes of pre-heat.

You need a good pair of diagonal cutters, and a good (spring-loaded) hogring plier, plud a supply of hogrings. The reason you want a spring-loaded hogring plier is that the plier holds the rings in place for you, while you line things up. It's nearly impossible to hold the cushion, upholstery, plier, and ring seperately.Cut the old rings off, paying attention to all the places they are used, usually including an interior wire. Take care to cut the rings ONLY, not the wires they attach to.

The new covers go on in the reverse order that the old ones came off. Don't be afraid to use a heat gun (or lamp) to keep the upholstery soft. Working it cold does NOT produce good results. When you're done, lay the finished cushions back out in the sun. I littel solar heat and rubbing will remove the minor wrinkles.

 

another trick I use is to put plastic shopping bags over the corners of the new seat buns to help with sliding inside the new upol. Once inside, keep a corner of the bag free to remove the bag
________
Rossy_Hot

 

Now that you are getting a taste of what is actually involved and it's lack of simplicity you should really consider repalcing the buns too while you are at it if you aren't, which is what I gathered from your post. New covers on saggy old buns are not atractive at all and will really make you wonder why you just went thru all that for a less than desirable appearance.

 

I found the listings to a be pain when I recovered a pair of 66 seats. It took a couple extra grunts to push the hog ring down far enough to catch the frame springs. Do not attempt to clip hog rings thru the cushions from the back side of the seat frame into/onto the listings. You could nick the piping threads, and have the seams come apart. (dont ask ! :bang: ) Also use a heated nail head, or other object, to melt thru the hinge pin on the bottom half of the seat.
When you're all done, there is nothing like the smell of fresh upholstery.

BTW, nice forum you all have here. Can I stay awhile? :worship:

 

Another one of Cloney's lackeys, I see.



Welcome Chris!

 

Absolutely! Welcome aboard.

Man, you guys are really making me appreciate the fact that I threw in the towel on recovering the seats and just bought aftermarket. This project doesn't sound like any fun at all. :bang:

 

Man, it takes mentioning "saggy buns" just to get a newbie to post anymore!!!

Welcome, Coupe!

 

I hung my new upholstery in a small hall bathroom and ran a ceramic heater in there until everything was toasty. Of course, it was February when I did mine.

It's not rocket science, and you can always undo what you've done. But I guarantee your hands will hurt for days when you're done.

 

Mano man... You guys say soak the upholstery in the sun or dryer.. What I did was wait until the middle of summer then I worked in an un a/c garaged after 12 pm. There was absolutely no problem with streatching the vinyl at all..... But then again I live in Phoenix and inside the garage was about 120 degrees at that time....

I'll try and post some of the over 2,000 (yes two thousand) pictures I took of uphostering my 72 seats tonight. (I still have the full write-up to do).

 

BTW Here's some before/after picts:

The better seat- bottom the the rear seat





The better front seat:





and yes the small wrinkles you see in the final front seat worked totally out after driving the car the next week for a couple hours to Anaheim.

 

Yikes!

I knew you were a glutton for punishment Brian, but that is rough. It may be hot as hades here, but at least I have the sense to get inside where it's cool. :tex:

Lookin forward to the write-up and more pics!

 

For what it's worth, I actually picked up a new tip for this over the weekend. I heard tell that if you pull the seat cover inside out and spray it with some silicone as well as the buns (saggy or otherwise) then installation frustration can be cut in half even without softening the vinyl, though that is still recommended.