Hi all,
Seats, the original of course, covered in nugahide from that mythical beast
that roamed the plains of the outer Kingdom, the nuga, not those seats covered
in leather from that other beast, the common cow.
When I finally decided the seats may need attention I found that replacement
covers had been stretched over the original covers on my Alpine. As well, the
base foam was almost extinct and the underlying rubber springy base's were
also repaired/extinct. The back foam was quite good however the original
design had no foam padding over the back tubular frame, only a cardboard
membrane supported the back of the vertical seat cover.
I decided to look at the options for the seat covers first, as mentioned
above, the seats seem to wear in the bases were the steel frame touches the
cover, as well the seat back suffers at both top corners were steel frame is
pressed on the seat back cover. In my car, the only reason to fit replacement
covers was to cover holes caused by the cover rubbing on the frame.
To restore the seat bases, I took the best rotten base to a trimmer who cut
new foam material for the bases (some cost). The material was cut square from
foam sheets and not to the form of the original bases. I assumed I would be
able to fit the seat base covers to the new foam after I obtained new rubber
seat base's from Sunbeam supplies in England (some cost). After the rubber
base's arrived I attempted to fit the seat base covers, no go, I took the seat
bases back to the trimmer and they fitted them (more cost).
I purchased a single seat cover from a reputable supplier (more cost) however
when it arrived it was of a different material to the 4 existing covers I had,
2 original (heavy vinyl) and 2 replacements (lighter vinyl). I returned the
cover and took mine to a company that offers repairs to vinyl and leather
seats etc. The guy was very good and repaired the holes in the seat backs so
you cannot pick the repairs. There was also a previous repair in one of the
seat bases that had been stitched up, the trimmer did not do anything about
it, the vinyl repair man fixed it and the stitching seemed to disappear.
(small cost).
Before I fitted the seat back covers to the frames I decided to add new
sections of 1/2" foam around the metal frames as well as the back section.
There was also a section at the lower part of the seat back were the back foam
is only held by the cardboard backing piece and over time body movement has
allowed the lower foam to move back into the seat frame. To fix this I cut a
small 1/2" section of timber and screwed it to the metal support triangle at
the lower part of the seat rear before fitting the covers.
The end result is two restored seats that look and feel great and it did not
need a full trimmers time and cost.
Steve
series 5 Gt (only about another 2 bloody years to go at this rate)
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