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Mon Feb 22, 2010 9:51 pm

got my old seat covers off, drilled out rivets, installed spring pad, padding, and 3 of 4 seat covers. Didn't pay enough attention to how the seat cover goes over the driver side back. Smooth... Pointy tabs on back of seat back are facing down. I'm thinking the front gets stretched under and hooked onto the pointy tabs somehow, then the back gets stretched over the tabs and they get pinched down. This seems to make sense, but I can't figure out how to hold the stretched front in place with the tabs pointed down. Any pics would be great.
thanks,
greg

Tue Feb 23, 2010 11:07 am

I don't know of any rivets that need drilled out. It's just as simple as bending out the pointy tabs and taking the cover off.

this is the lower section. There is a wire sewn into the perimeter that is snagged by the sharp points. This wire is then twisted to make it tighter

you can see where it's cinched around the outer edge

The back is secured the same way, with points around the perimeter. No continuous wire is used here.

Here's the seat bottom-cloth removed.

I used one large burlap coffee sack per seat area (one on back, one on the but) They where a buck apeice at our local army surplus store.

Seat foams

restuffed seat

You'll see that my results were less than perfect. I'm ordering the seat cover kit for @250.00 and going to give it another try. There's a little blow out in the restuffed pic on the seat back. These seats are 36 years old and not flexable as they should be. By cramming new pads back into them some tearing is expected. The feel is great so I know I got that down. I thought I'd get off cheap by re-stuffing the seats then hitting them with the upholstery steamer. Not gonna happen- Lesson learned. I'll post an updated pic in a few months when I feel like doing it again. I've had enough stabbed thumbs and stress for one day.

Tue Feb 23, 2010 6:11 pm

Chazz, thanks for the reply. As for the rivets, my driver's seat has a reclining apparatus (obviously not a lot of recline) that prevents it from laying flat like your pics. The one you did looks like my passenger's seat with the open back. My driver's seat has a full back.. this is where it's going to get confusing. Both the front and back of the driver's seat backrest (plaid and vinyl) are hooked into the same set of pointy tabs. The vinyl needs to overlay the plaid that was pulled around the bottom of the seat back. Do the tabs point up or down?

Wed Feb 24, 2010 12:15 am

The points are always smashed down away from the direction of tension.
The drivers seat is also recovered as a complete unit. No need to do anything with the rivets. I'll do a better write-up when I get the new seat covers in. 250.00 is pretty steep but at least they're making them in blue/green now. Can't be too fussy when you're dealing with an oddball color eh?