How to RECOVER Mopar Bucket Seats in YOUR Driveway

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Prine

Prine

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How to RECOVER Mopar Bucket Seats in YOUR Driveway

Sounds like fun right? Well, doing some work at home can really save you some money on your project. And we all like that. I recently did this job in my driveway and wanted to share the experience. The real Holdup on doing a job like this is: Tools and Seat Covers. I got the Seat Covers from Legendary Auto Interiors, and the quality is GREAT.

STEP ONE - put seat covers in sunlight to warm up

Position the car on the driveway but leave some working room in front.
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Then, I always disconnect the battery
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Your probably gonna need some Spray Lubricant for the next step
this is what I use
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The seats are attached to the car with (4) studs that protrude from the Seat Track through the floor to the underside of the floorpan
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Spray all (4) threaded studs from the bottom, on each bucket seat on each side of the car

Then Remove (4) Nuts holding the seat in
This is where it gets dirty, so keep a rag handy for cleanup
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Once the Seats are Removed.......
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Set up a open area to work in. You'll need some room. I used the opening of my garage, and an old black fender cover spread out on the ground.
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Set a Bucket Seat up for Disassembly, by laying on its back
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Remove the Hinge Covers on both sides with a Philips Screwdriver
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Then, remove the Hinge PIN Bolt...this attaches the top of the seat to the bottom section of the seat
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Once the upper and lower section is seperated, you can choose which to tackle first, but I went with the upper seat first.
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To remove the old covers, you'll need a pair of Heavy Duty Diagonal Cutters
Cut the (5) hogrings that seal up the seat cover along the lower seam
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Once you cut the hog rings...there are some rods that go up each side and hook into the seat frame....disengage those....and.....work the old cover up and off....till you get to the "short" row of hog rings....cut those
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Your gonna need HogRing Pliers and approximately 50 rings to do (2) seats
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Make sure and clean up your Foam and all the crevices from debris.

To begin the assembly, take your cover (which has been sitting in the sunlight, right?) and stretch it and flip it Vinyl Side IN
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Attach the inner part of the cover to the Foam/Seat Frame where you LAST cut hogrings.


- To Be Continued -

Back to where I left off:


Slip the attachment rod through the eyelets and hog ring the attachment rod to the seat frame
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Then, slowly and carefully start pulling the Upper Cover over the seat back and down to the base
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Insert the Vertical Attachment Rod through the upper side eyelets and secure them with a Hogring on the bottom end
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Then Hogring the lower seam closed....your now done with the Seat Back....set it aside.

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To begin the Seat Bun....Flip it over and cut off all the perimeter (edge) hogrings.
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Peel the lower cover off and discard

Clean the foam and clean out all the crevices like you did on the Seat Back

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Slide the Seat Bottom Side Attachment rods through the eyelets and Hogring them to the lower seat frame.

Stretch the lower cover down and around the sides and slip the edges through the seat track and Hogring the perimeter of the cover to the Lower Seat frame in the manner they were attached from the factory.

Reattach the Seat Back to the Seat Bottom with the Hinge Pin Bolts......Reinstall the Hinge Covers.....Reinstall the Seat in the Car.

Repeat Procedure for other side.

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Then....enjoy.

:cheers:






(dont forget to hook the battery up)
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Read more about this article here...
 
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Looks good so far and you are lucky your foam is ok on your seats. Lots of guys won't tackle this me being one so I want to see how you make out on this. Smart to use Ledgendary stuff as it is the best quality to start with. Nice of you to post this up with lots of photos for us less talented folks.
 
Nice thread. Looks like someone's been to the local farm supply store for the pliers and rings. Depending on what you may need they do make different sizes of rings. Shoat rings are the smallest, then the Pig rings, and if you need bigger ones they have Hog rings as well.
 
Coming along nicely. Crazy how seat covers can make an interior go from junk to restored in an afternoon. Just did the bench seats in my car as well. I don't know how buckets look underneath but I can vouch for needing the angeled hog ring pliers if you're doing a bench. The straight pliers worked but I had to try 5, 6, sometimes 10 times to get some of the hog rings into the hard to reach areas on the side of the seat.

Here's how mine went.

http://slantsix.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=49712
 
yes...nice

did my 73 Duster bucket seats a couple of years ago...bench seats are fun to recover..lol

Recovering Seats in Driveway 7-1.jpg




Recovering Seats in Driveway 7-2.jpg
 
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FomocoReformed said:
Wow good work, would it be possible to use a heat gun to tighten up the wrinkles in the cover?
Click to expand...

I would let the car sit in the sun for a couple days before getting a heat gun out. The wrinkles shown in the thread I posted above all went away after one day of sitting in the sun at work.
 
^ agreed.

I let the covers bake in the car with the windows up the day after the install....and covers look great now.
 
Great Post.
Just to add to it, when you have the seats apart switch the left and right seat foam padding. this will help with the worn out areas of the left and right seat foam when getting in and out of the car!
 
Nice. I plan on doing mine in my 71 Dart. Rear seat as well. How long should I plan on spending doing them?
 
Nice work man, is the principle the same for bench seats? Do they sell fabric pre cut and stitched somewhere for bench seat? I have never done any upholstery work, I think it would be cool to refinish my front seat this year. Either that, or I'm just gonna buy a couple of buckets lol.
 
Clarification on pic 18 "short row hog ring" section.

I'm doing 73 Satellite seats and I'm hung up in that area.

I cut the rings holding the side listing wires to the frame. They were VERY tightly ringed.

You didn't?

Now I can't get the pliers down far enough into the side crevice to ring the wire back.
I thought about removing enough foam from the back side to do it that way...

You were able to slide the listing wire through both the pockets on the cover AND the hog rings you left in place (even against gravity and pressure from the cover), and in extremely tight quarters??

You did not ring the listing wire back to the cross wire near the top?

BTW, what year is you Sport? There was just a thread abut identifying seats like yours. We all thought they were newer because of the hinge cover design.

Is that a quadruple black car (black paint, black int, black top, black stripe)?

Nice car, and nice writeup.
 
Cut out the dead foam on the bolster and glue a new piece in. Carve it to shape using an electric meat carving knife. Better is to replace seat bottom foam with new.
A clothes steamer will allow you to work the wrinkles out
 
...and the side flap pockets for my side listing wires were very tight with very flimsy and easily pulled out stitching.....from Legendary.

That certainly doesn't help.
 
Seat covers like the ones sold by Legendary should have the wrinkles worked out as you install them, the wrinkles won't just go away, they are caused from not stretching the covers correctly when you install them and from using old worn out buns. You should always replace the buns when you recover the seats, even if the originals look good they're not. Over time they break down, dry up, collapse, and shrink, this is why a lot of seats are wrinkled after they get recovered. At the very least, you should use spray adhesive and glue 1"-2" thick dense seat foam to the old seat buns to fill in the new seat covers if you can't afford to buy new buns. The seats should look like balloons full of air when you're done.

Here is the seats in my Cuda, I used new buns on the front seats and since the rear used a cloth batting from the factory, I used a 2 1/2" piece of foam with the top layer of factory batting over it which filled in the covers perfectly, even with the mods I done to clear the tubs.


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...but be careful if you are tall!

I added a thin poly layer to one of my seat bottoms, and it filled it out and made it very attractive...but the additional 3/8 of height made my head hit the headliner.

I made it the passenger seat, and left only the used factory bun on the driver's side...and I still fit.
 
H20loo said:
Blownfish- that wasn't your first rodeo LOL. Those seats look professional.
Click to expand...


Actually, those were the first ones I ever done completely. But I've had so many cars in the past and had to fix the foam in some of them.
 
What would you guys recommend for padding? Is there a go to place for it? My 66 seats need re-stuffed.
 
For buckets, legendary and year one are about your only bet.

For bench seat bottoms I used two 1" high density foam pads from my local upholstery shop. That was enough for the front. Another two were needed for the rear. The bench backs were still in good shape so they didn't need to be redone. If your backs are cut/torn, legendary sells the original type of cotton batting that the factory used.
 
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