since I do seats as a learning hobby well . to make money also. I'd have you open up the seat take the cover off and hopefully the vinyl isn't too bad that it can't be stitched back together, old cars like ours still use cotton sewing thread and it rots away in decades of use. sitting actually is worse than using the seats. they may be able to "shorten" the seam a bit since it looks like it did rip the vinyl and that probably will be a problem, some backing material and canvas can "help" if you try to restitch that panel back into place (it will have to be folded over to make one panel shorter and adding backing might save it , but I 'd probable replace than torn panel with matching new vinyl if it's available
that stich will tear the vinyl back out in one use, you would be called a hack trimmer and never have any repeat customers if you did that.
You would need to put something behind it, thicker material, to back it ..as you sew into it and then bring in the other side.. either way you would ideally want to fold both sides to sew into..or you make like as if you were covering an eye hole with some extra material perhaps and it's going to look Frankenstein. Up to you. The 'no brainer' thing that comes to mind ..is you take it to an Auto Upholstery shop.
Cute family!!
I'm not cheap, I'm just thrifty!LOL......Shame on you cruiser! A date coded PCV valve and duct tape?
Yeah, an auto upholstery shop quoted me $240.00 for the job if I brought the seat bottom in. Kinda pricey, but I may just have to bite the bullet, put a crowbar in my wallet and pay up.
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.
This is coming to you with all the Christian love I can give......but really? This coming from a guy that has a gorgeous Charger for sale for 89.5K (and it's beautiful, I think you'll get it) PLUS your Duster is absolutely beautiful and WELL WORTH the 240 buck expenditure do fix the seat as RIGHT as you have repaired and restored the rest of it.
It really can't be fixed. Time for new covers.
This right here ^^^^^ is how they do it. That way, even if the vinyl is trying to deteriorate, it has something to back it up with.
Worst case is, he'll have to take it into the shop, but I agree, gettin the cover off is not too bad.
Watch out for cobwebs and spiders!
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.
