Tear in my seat cover. What can I do?

[RustyRatRod]

Yeah, I think I might give it a try. I've never done any upholstery work before, and I don't want it to look like a third grader did it. Fortunately, it's not in an area that's in direct sight. The problem is all the disassembly: Removing the bench seat from the car, removing both of the seat backs (never did that before), removing the seat cover itself and then driving it (about 90 minutes) to the only car upholstery guy that I trust up here. It appears that its not the cover that's torn, but rather the skirt where it's sewn to the cover. The skirt material has separated where the weight of the driver is concentrated. So the upholsterer would presumably fab up a new skirt and install it. So that's why I was seeking a simpler solution. For example, I recently had minor surgery and they closed up the incision with glue. No stitches and it worked perfectly. So I thought that if the medical world was using a product like this, that the auto industry might have evolved along similar lines to where they had a new adhesive that could easily and permanently close a rip like this without all the hassle and expense. But I guess not, which is why I was asking my FABO brethren for advice. So it looks like I'll be doing it the old fashioned way. BTW, the original owner had the front seat back and bottom recovered with NOS material about 25 years ago, and they did a great job. The seat bottom material in the photo is NOS replacement material, not factory original. So in any case, I'll head out to the cold garage (10 degrees here in Minneapolis this morning, 15 below with the wind chill) and get going on it. I'll post finished photos, but it'll be awhile since my guy is pretty backed up. Thanks again for all the advice (and abuse for being a cheap bastard, which I probably deserve). Be well all and I'll post photos when done.

Heck, I'm cheap too I own it. lol I think you can do it with everything else you've done. Just take it slow and easy. Ya cheap bastid. LOL

 

[DentalDart]

I agree with mentioned above. It can be done right or it can be done cheap.

I’m a cheap bastard, I’ll waste more time than it’s worth trying to save a couple of bucks. But…. With cheap doesn’t always come quality.

So you have to decide. Do you want a cheap fix that may work for a while but might not look “perfect?” Or do you want a quality job that will look good and perform as new? If you want the latter it won’t be cheap.

Now most things in my purple car were done cheap, because 1 I’m cheap and 2 I was a poor dental student with 3 kids and no job.

This new dart will get quality because I want it done right, I want it to look good and want it to last.

 

[66Dvert]

Not everyone is carrying a $1500 dollar industrial upholstery sewing machine that they can just whip out of their van to fix a seat for a fellow member.

The OP is looking for cost effective solutions that he can do himself.

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☆☆☆☆☆

got 4 (well 2 jukis, 1 consew and a modified sailrite long arm for the trunk liners I make) of those and they are about 150 used anymore and the table is another 50 or so but the long arm did cost me 500 to get the extension to make it a longarm , even a crappy singer home sewing machine can sew through (slowly) that vinyl section, there is NO cost effective way to fix bad vinyl that'll rip when you sew into it other than adding eternabond tape on the back side and sewing through the vinyl and eternabond tape OR replacing with new vinyl. there are temporary fixes such as tape and glueing but again temporary.

 

[str12-340]

So this is the car that you just spent 4 years perfecting the /6 engine bay in, right???? Pull the seat cover off, take it to a pro and then reinstall it yourself. Thatseam get a lot of stress. A cheap fix will just blow out again/