My new upholstery 412 front seats, need help with a part

[pbnjimages]

Hi all, Im new to the forum, and have a 74 412. I decided to try to reupholster the seats myself, but need help with a part.
While adjusting the amount of recline in the driver seat back, I broke one of the bottom crescent shaped pieces. I am hoping one of you might have the part, or can tell me of a workaround to get it working again.

I took quite a few pix of the process to refurbish the seats, and if anyone is interested, I can put together a post of the process.

I wanted the look to be as stock as possible, but with an upscale look, perhaps what VW would have offered as an upgrade. Feedback is welcome.

Thanks to all of you on this forum, if it weren't for what I've learned here, I never would have decided to fix this car.

[raygreenwood]

Very nice work! I would like to know more and more about materials.

I have kind of decided....so far....not to redo mine. I am for the moment going to use thr procar seats grafted onto the 412 seat bottom mount and skirt....with 412 headrests.

Let me look in my stuff and see what spare parts I have. Ray

[pbnjimages]

Our seats were complete trash. The PO had cut springs out of the seats whenever they broke and poked through. Most of the original upholstery was in tatters. We considered the Procar seat idea, but decided it would be fun to try to revive these. We tore them down to the springs, and cleaned the ruse off with a wire wheel on the drill. Fabricated new springs pieces out of 1/8"steel rod purchased at the home improvement store. Shaped it with a propane torch, and grafted it into place with wire cable connectors also purchased at the home center. Painted them with rustoleum.

We covered the springs in canvas, shaped TP70 1" foam, and stitched black vinyl with houndstooth fabric insert. The vinyl and foam supplies came from a local foam and upholstery supply house, and the houndstooth was ordered off the interweb. Total supplies to do the front seats came to about $250

[pbnjimages]

We started by stripping what was left of covers off, along with the remnants of padding and coir that still remained. wire wheel on a drill got rid of the rust and a coat of rustoleum made them ready for another 40 years.

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binding the springs. We found some clearance canvas at the upholstery shop, and used it to sew up the springs. It helps them to move together, and also keeps them from cutting into the foam, or the coir if you are going that route.
By the way, all these tips were gleaned from another VW owner, who posted videos online, I can't remember his name, but he was doing a Ghia I think. Perhaps he is a Samba member?

[pbnjimages]

Next step was laying down some foam. I used TP 70, not sure what the TP stands for, but the guy at the upholstery supply called it topper. It comes in sheets that are something like 24"x 72"

I used an electric carving knife to cut and rough shape, and a grinder to round the edges. Stuck it to the canvas with spray adhesive on both surfaces.

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Time to start pattern making. It seemed that the original had a heat pressed pattern that resembled pleats. They measured 1.5"wide, 8 rows, for a total width of 12". This portion of the seat we decided to go with houndstooth fabric. We glued it to 1/2"sew foam, which is a foam sheet that has a mesh fabric bonded to one side. Then sewed the pleats. Although the houndstooth pattern will make you cross eyed prety quick, it also made it very easy to sew straight lines, as I could follow the edges of a row of squares.

Note: After suffering through the first panel with my wife's home viking machine, I bit the bullet and found a portable "industrial" machine used for a little over $300. Much stronger and it would turn out to be the only way to sew through some of the thick pieces.

The fabric was cut oversize to 14" because it will shrink in width as you sew the pleats due to gathering. The foam is cut even larger to make aligning it easier.

[pbnjimages]

You might notice a completed seat upside down in one of the photos. I neglected to take pics of much of the process, but as I now start the covering of the rear seat, I am filling in with pics of that.

I have no idea how thick the original pads were, but with the 1"heavy density pad, and the 1/2"sew foam, I think I got pretty close, and it makes for an extremely comfortable seat.

[raygreenwood]

Then you are probably pretty close. One of the hallmarks of 411 and 412...is that the stock seat shapes and padding. ..are easily just about the most comfortable car seat I have ever been in and I have been in a lot. The dasher had seats whose shape and bolstering and padding were very close.
Thats why I have not decided what to do on mine yet. Its a long way to go before I get to seats.....but it would be great to restore the originals. Ray

[pbnjimages]

I start with finding the center point and sewing one seam. Measure out 1.5"for the start of the next seam. If you mark all the lines first, you will end up with a panel that is too narrow. I worked out from the center until I had 7 seams. At that point I measured out 1.75"and trimmed to the line. The extra .25"gave me the seam allowance.

The center panel is 12.5"wide on the original upholstery. I cut a panel of vinyl 13"wide to allow for the .25"seam allowance per side. When they are attached it made the last pleat the same width as the rest.

Now that the center vinyl panel is attached, I can trim the fabric panel to length

[pbnjimages]

Thanks to Jan in Arizona, I am soon going to have the broken seat part. He dismantled a seat from his breaking yard and salvaged me the part, along with some other goodies.

[raygreenwood]

Awesome pics! Thank you!

Long ago I stripped down a pair of my seat frames. I was starting to get into what to do for a recovering and other things got n the way. You pics will help me get back into it to make a decision.

Sorry I did not answer back. I dont have a spare of the part you need. I'm glad you found one.
Ray

[pbnjimages]

I believe that the pros sew the piping in between the layers in one pass, lining up the piping material with the top and bottom layers. A good piping foot on your machine will help keep it lined up. I, however, am not a pro, and found that after turning the seam right side out, I would have too much of the piping sticking out, making for an ugly seam. I found that if I sew the piping to one side first, and then sew all that to the top layer, I could keep the stitches right up to the pipe, and make for a much cleaner transition.

A note on the machine I bought. It is a Consew CP206R. New, they sell for about $450. They are plenty strong enough to sew through multiple layers of vinyl or leather, and can punch through plastic J channel no problem. It comes with an active walking foot, which is critical when keeping thick top layers feeding through the machine at the same rate as the bottom layers. It also comes with a zipper foot, which works as a piping foot for small diameter piping. I tried buying a passive walking foot accessory for my wife's viking home machine. Waste of money, and now my honey-do list is exponentially larger, after messing her machine up.

Bite the bullet, buy a used upholstery machine, and it will pay for itself before you finish the job.

[pbnjimages]

I wish I had taken more photos of every step, but I rushed through a lot of the front seats and didn't take the time. Luckily for those that care, I had to pull the back rest upholstery off in order to repair the seat back release.

I hope these pics answer some questions you might have.

The top portion of the material secures into a track in the back with a thin sewn in strip of press board. I couldn't find any at first, so I used J channel available online or at any auto upholstery supply. Had I asked the guys at A1 Foam and Upholstery I would have found they had strips of the pressboard.
First couple pics show the channel.

The sides wrap onto the rear frame of the seat with an extruded channel of plastic. I took a heat gun to the folded edge, opened it up enough for the machine to be able to stitch to vinyl to the channel

[pbnjimages]

Head rests spooked me at first, but turned out to be quite easy.
Sew the zipper half to each end of the top piece, making sure to fold the last 1/4 inch over for a finished edge. Then sew each side in. When rolling your cover over the headrest foam, make sure the seams fold towards the middle of the head rest, and not folded towards the outsides, as that will leave bulging uneven seams.

If you are having trouble pulling the cover tight enough down the foam, a this trash bag or dry cleaning bag between them will let it slide nicely. Your zipper ends don't have to be perfectly aligned, in fact its a bit easier if one is a little longer than the other side. Just make sure your zipper has at least an inch or more excess on all sides.

Slide the zipper pull onto the longer side, guide the other zipper half into the slide, and with somebody pulling the material together and folding the zipper seam under, zip shut, and pull the zipper pull all the way off. Tuck the zipper excess in to the cover at both ends.

[raygreenwood]

Very nice!
Ray

[pbnjimages]

So I pulled apart the rear panel with map pocket. Originally I was going to replace the elastic, clean them up and reuse them, but after everything else it seemed silly to not reproduce them too.

Press board cut to size, vinyl glued over it. The map pocket is made from a single sheet of vinyl. The square holes dictate how much gather is in each pleat. When marking out the holes, I carried the side marks of each hole to the bottom of the material. Small shallow Vs are cut into the material at the bottom to align the bottom of the pleats with the tops. Top portion is folded over and sewn down to duplicate the heat sealed "seam"of the originals.

the Consew machine I bought used is plenty strong enough to sew through the press board and the vinyl. Staples might be an option, but I havent tried.

The bottom of the pocket is sewn to the panel upside down, then folded up over the panel and the sides are sewn. Those seams are hidden when the panel is fitted in the grooves.

As the bottom is sewn, I aligned the V alignment cuts with each other.

Before the sides are sewn up, I threaded the elastic through the square holes, used the pocket to mark where the through holes should be to hold the elastic, cut with exacto, and assembled.

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Completed front and rear. Making a carpet set starts tomorrow. After that we will make new door and interior panels with houndstooth inserts, recover the dash, and cut a full length sliding ragtop in the roof. Wish us luck!

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Wonderful work, keep posting Terry

[raygreenwood]

Yes!....even though my seat work is faryher down the line....I will be using your posts to get my head back into my type 4 seat restoration possibilities. Thank you! Ray