Reupholster Seats

[Tcash]

[streamr]

Very nice work, well done. They look as new.
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'03 MV

[camit34]

Nicely done!
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In search of a Vanagon
1971 Westy (SOLD)
1971 Deluxe (SOLD)
1967 Freedom Camper (SOLD)

[Derek Cobb]

Nice straight seams and no wrinkles or lumps. Outstanding job!

[eche_bus]

Hey, my seat upholstery job is "famous"! I didn't set out to make a tutorial or would have taken more photos of the steps. Anyways ... you can see the other seat come together in my build thread and am happy to answer questions any time!

Thanks for the nice comments, folks!

[udidwht]

When I did mine about 15 years ago I went with this route...

Great thing is they still look and feel like I did them yesterday. They are also not hot during the summer and warm during the winter.
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1972 Westy Hardtop/Type-4 2056cc
96mm Biral AA P/C's~7.8:1CR
Headflow Masters New AMC 42x36mm heads w/Porsche swivel adjusters
71mm Stroke
73 Web Cam w/Web solids
Dual 40mm IDF Webers - LM-2 - 47.5 idles/125 mains/190 air corr./F11 tubes/28mm Vents - Float height 10.45mm/Drop 32mm
Bosch SVDA w/Pertronix module (7.5 initial 28 total @ 3400rpm)
Bosch W8CC plugs
Pertronix Flamethrower 40K coil
S&S 4-1 w/Walker QP 17862
3 rib 002 Trans
185R14 Hankook tires

[ned]

Makes my fingers ache just lookin at this.

[philbur]

I am doing the exact same thing and just got my covers from BD.. i need to get the pads and will follow your learnings

One of my seats is broken in the middle of the back rest, i need to take apart and weld. Ill check out your build thread for any more details i can leverage.

Thanks & great work!!!

phil.

[curtis4085]

[orange540]

NIce Job.

I have been search high and low to find an old seat for my 1977 Microbus (22) Type 2 to fix the couple of broken springs I have.

You're saying that a weld will hold on the springs??

[jmstu76]

[eche_bus]

A couple of things:
One of my springs was broken and I had it welded. Didn't see a problem where it would be likely to break again, although it likely depends a lot on where and how the repair has been made.

The covers you see in the photos are from BD. I had a problem with one set where it had been sewn crooked, such that the plaid pattern was noticeably skewed relative to the vinyl. BD exchanged it, even though it had been months since purchase. The other problem is a difference from original Westys. As best I can tell from photos of original buses, the major direction of the plaid pattern runs across the width of the seat. On the BD ones, the major direction runs along the length of the seat. This makes alignment of the back and the base more critical and will likely not come out exact. For what its worth, the BD covers are the only ones available. You could pay a shop to custom build a set to get the plaid oriented right, but the cost would likely approach 2X what the BD covers go for.

[DougB]

From what I saw GoWesty also has covers, and for those of us with blue/green plaid they are the only covers that feature the green vinyl (like my originals), not blue vinyl like in the Bus Depot covers. You may have to contact them to specifically ask for the green vinyl with the blue/green plaid covers...that's what I did.

http://www.gowesty.com/ec_view_details.php?id=2758&category_id=162&category_parent_id=

Here's the response I received from GW-rep, Samatha, when I asked about getting blue/green plaid with green vinyl:
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Hello Doug,

we can special order them for you. If you place your order online, please contact us immediately after with you order number. We can make sure the PO gets sent with the special order notes.

Please let me know if I can be of more assistance, thank you.

Samantha Wayne
Go Westy
1119 Los Olivos Ave
Los Osos, CA 93402
Ph: 888.469.3789 xt 140
Fax: 805.903.1048
[email protected]
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Once again, this is a specific gripe for the blue/green plaid covers. Your green ones look great, and you did an excellent job!
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'75 Campmobile (tin-top to SpaceRoof)
'73 Fastback
'52 BMW R67/2
'41 Zundapp KS600
'55 Puch SGS250
A very, very understanding wife

[Wasted youth]

Wow! Nice looking work! As said, the wrinkle-free and tight coverings look great. There is an old upholstery guy here in town who re-upholstered one of our overstuffed chairs. His iron handshake grip nearly caused me injury! Your comments about how strenuous the work is made me reflect on the old guy. Can't wait to get mine redone!

[Keith]

These seat covers came out awesome ! I will be following what was done in this thread when I do mine.

I can't understand why a company that goes through the effort of reproducing parts ( or selling them ) wont have those parts reproduced EXACTLY as original. The blue vinyl on the blue plaid is ridiculous, WHY?? And orienting the plaid in the wrong direction? WTF ? These are two VERY minor issues that could easily be rectified by talking to the manufacturer.

My champagne edition westy uses the brown plaid and right now there seems to be a problem finding it. I hope this isn't a permanent issue. I will need that material in the near future.

In hope bus depot and go westy are reading this thread and make the corrections and get MORE brown plaid !!!!!

Same goes for those god damn pedistal mats !! If your not going to make a proper length swivel seat mat, then make them longer so that the guys with non swivel seats can just cut them to length rather than us with a swivel seat having to buy two mats and cobbling them together.
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Formerly known in the forums as "OVALTEEN"

"I firmly believe that some villagers from Botswana could probably build a better road than PennDot."- Splitty

"If you do anything to your car someone will hate on you for it. People absolutely love to complain and find fault with others. Don't let it bother you. Just live and have fun."- Lind

[eche_bus]

Keith, couldn't agree more about how crazy it is that things get reproduced wrong. After spending months and months ranting and raving about the crap that fills the VW repro market, I finally gave up and just stopped buying any reproduction stuff I didn't absolutely have to and switched to buying good used and NOS. In the case of the seat covers, they were the best solution available as I had no originals for someone to even use as reference to build a correct set. Throughout the bus I've had to make compromises that I wouldn't have considered for a minute when I restored my Mustang. Garbage in ---> garbage out. It's a hard pill to swallow, but sometimes settling for "doesn't suck quite as much" is all one can do.

[DougB]

I'm glad you mentioned the primary direction of the plaid pattern...I never thought that it would be something to check, that repro'd parts might not get that right. I guess if you can request a certain vinyl color from GoWesty you might also be able to have them position the fabric has the plaid pattern in the appropriate direction.

The seats look really really nice, though!
_________________
'75 Campmobile (tin-top to SpaceRoof)
'73 Fastback
'52 BMW R67/2
'41 Zundapp KS600
'55 Puch SGS250
A very, very understanding wife

[Keith]

DougB, my thought exactly on requesting they put the plaid on the correct way when ordering a set of covers. Hopefully they don't have some stupid reason for why they can't do it the correct way.

Just a note for some of you that are recovering everything in new plaid. The stools plaid runs the opposite direction of the seats ( or, the same direction as the aftermarket seat covers that are going in the wrong direction from factory) That's how Westfalia did it and it makes no sense.
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Formerly known in the forums as "OVALTEEN"

"I firmly believe that some villagers from Botswana could probably build a better road than PennDot."- Splitty

"If you do anything to your car someone will hate on you for it. People absolutely love to complain and find fault with others. Don't let it bother you. Just live and have fun."- Lind

[69BahamaYellow]

I'm a big fan of the Plaid upholstery, but like others have found, it's hard to find the color combos that best match your bus. Even then, the quality can be questionable. The cheapest and best thing I found to do was buy the appropriate color vinyl you need from a local upholstery store, get the appropriate color OEM Plaid fabric from Bus Depot, and the sisal (hair/coconut fiber) pads from Wolfsburg West. A reputable upholstery shop can sew the new covers using your supplied fabric and vinyl, using your old covers as a pattern. Mine came out absolutely awesome, so I did all of my seats. I can also share that the middle and back seat covers are way more difficult to install than the front ones, but still something the average do it yourselfer can handle. As for durability, the busdepot Plaid fabric has been in my car for about a year now and wears very well. It has faded a little, compared to some leftover scrap pieces I still have, but I live in an area that gets 300+ days of sunshine a year, so I'd say it has fared well.

[LFL3]