Thank you for reviving this thread. I am completely inspired to replace my foam now. I don't know why it took reading this to make me realise it is definitely a "thing needing to be done"
How to replace your seat bottom foam (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter azTony
- Start date
This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.
Thank you for reviving this thread. I am completely inspired to replace my foam now. I don't know why it took reading this to make me realise it is definitely a "thing needing to be done"
While a simple job, it's pretty tedious. Took me over 3 hours but well worth the effort and part cost IMO. I drove on the new cushion today for about 45 minutes, major improvement noticed.
I still would prefer a longer seat bottom, guess my femurs and thighs are longer than Mr. T's.
I still would prefer a longer seat bottom, guess my femurs and thighs are longer than Mr. T's.
Just curious if the passenger side bottom foam will work on the drivers side? Lots of good passenger sides out there without the wear factor and I need to get this done!
Thanks for the writeup. Just did this for my DS bottom cushion and this really helped. I have manual seats and cloth and there is only one electrical connector under the seat for the seatbelt connector. My cloth is still in excellent shape but I don't have any running boards and can't touch the ground so the outside bolster was shot from sliding out of the seat. Once done it looks and feels like new.
As a note, the hog ring part number has been superseded and is now 90468-16019 (90468-16019 replaces 90468-18008). Takes 22 hog rings, 12 along the outer edge and 10 in the center of the cushion. The zip ties mentioned above seem like a great idea too and would be simpler. Only other thing is when reattaching the rails to the seat, I left the inside one slightly loose so I could line up the bolt holes with the floor, then when it was bolted to the floor I tightened the rail to the seat.
Randy
'94
As a note, the hog ring part number has been superseded and is now 90468-16019 (90468-16019 replaces 90468-18008). Takes 22 hog rings, 12 along the outer edge and 10 in the center of the cushion. The zip ties mentioned above seem like a great idea too and would be simpler. Only other thing is when reattaching the rails to the seat, I left the inside one slightly loose so I could line up the bolt holes with the floor, then when it was bolted to the floor I tightened the rail to the seat.
Randy
'94
This writeup helped a ton === thank you! No more crumbling foam covering the carpet and a happier rear end. 
Has anyone take the fabric of the seat backs? I retested how the headrest plastic guides come out...
SteelHunterFJ80
SILVER Star
Bringing up an old thread obviously but I have the same feeling regarding the seat bottom length. Given that you had it done for a while now @smoothcruiser would you still have done it or gone with another seat? Thanks in advance, I gotta decide what I'm going to do with my seats soon here
Dirt Ferguson
SILVER Star
@smoothcruiser could you please clarify why the piece of gorilla tape was a benefit on the factory reinforced area (the dark area on the bottom of the cushion)?
I just got my new OEM DS bottom foam today. Looking forward to sitting a little higher and more comfortably by this weekend.
Thanks,
DR
I just got my new OEM DS bottom foam today. Looking forward to sitting a little higher and more comfortably by this weekend.
Thanks,
DR
With enough beer and cutting, anything is possible. Barring that, the seat bottoms are not interchangeable to the best of my knowledge. The outside seat bolster (on each seat) has a steel bar to protect the recline switch. The seat foam is molded to fit over that bar. The seat bottom is molded specifically to the driver and passenger side.Bumping this.
Was it determined doable?
My gf will never notice the diff
I’m not sure this is true, at least not from what is visible.
I just replaced the seat fabric from my driver side with a passenger bottom cover from a junk yard rig. Of course, the bottom foam for my driver seat is in thousands of pieces all around my vehicle, so I decided to put a SOR foam in. Everything people say about the SOR foams is true, much taller (I’m 6’1” and my head brushes the headliner if I am wearing anything in my hair) but also much more comfortable.
As far as the foam and frame on the donor seat, I don’t see anything special other than the post that the seat back hinges on. The foam bottom and the frame look totally symmetrical. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m going on what I see.
Dirt Ferguson
SILVER Star
I just finished this job on my DS cloth manual front seat. This thread really helped on numerous accounts. I went with the zip tie route.
The job took me about 2 hours. I think I saved significant time by cutting out the metal wire in the old foam cushion in sections and sliding it out from the hog rings which remained attached to the cushion cover, rather than trying to open/ cut out each individual hog ring.
My old foam was annihilated so it was a pretty messy job. I had my shop vac handy as I did the work on top of our basement chest freezer, which proved to be the perfect height for me. Very easy to work on that surface.
Having re-installed the seat, I can tell this is going to make a big difference. I had to adjust my rear view mirror and steering wheel because I was sitting that much higher and I felt way more supported.
In the past, on long trips I was constantly shifting and repositioning myself to get comfortable. I was sitting in a bowl and it took its toll on my back and body overall. I felt much more supported with the new foam in place. I can’t wait for a nice long drive this long weekend to break it in and get the max benefits.
If you’re thinking about doing this, do it.
The job took me about 2 hours. I think I saved significant time by cutting out the metal wire in the old foam cushion in sections and sliding it out from the hog rings which remained attached to the cushion cover, rather than trying to open/ cut out each individual hog ring.
My old foam was annihilated so it was a pretty messy job. I had my shop vac handy as I did the work on top of our basement chest freezer, which proved to be the perfect height for me. Very easy to work on that surface.
Having re-installed the seat, I can tell this is going to make a big difference. I had to adjust my rear view mirror and steering wheel because I was sitting that much higher and I felt way more supported.
In the past, on long trips I was constantly shifting and repositioning myself to get comfortable. I was sitting in a bowl and it took its toll on my back and body overall. I felt much more supported with the new foam in place. I can’t wait for a nice long drive this long weekend to break it in and get the max benefits.
If you’re thinking about doing this, do it.
Malleus
Far west of Siegen
Where did you find the foam on JDM Japan? I looked and they only have a motor mount and centecap listed.
Great write up. Going to try to perform this swap this weekend. thank you!
77mustard40
SILVER Star
Knocked this out today on my 97, the DS seat bottom fabric is worn but still alive but the foam bottom is beyond burnt toast. I used some large wire cutters on the hog rings around the outside of the seat, needle nose on the inner rings. The foam on the underside of my fabric was in rough shape, I ended up removing most of it before washing the fabric. I used zip ties for reassembly which went pretty quickly, doing so allowed me to get them all in place before snugging them up and trimming. Overall, it came out pretty good, comfort is night and day.
I should add a few things to this thread, I did a foam replacement for the drivers side seat of my HZJ80R a week or so, but I also repaired tears in the fabric by cutting out new cloth panels from a donor 80 series seat back, stitching it all up with industrial thread, and cushioning the metal wire edges around the seat to prevent "cutting into" the fabric when the foam gets worn, which is what caused the tears in the first place and seems very common.
Ehh, I'll throw a few pictures in here now and the broad strokes. I thought I took a good "before" picture, but apparently not. There was a big tear in the vinyl side of the cloth seat on my 80, and a tear in the top fabric where it meets, and breaks in the piping on the edge. This is caused by the old foam breaking down over time, and allowing some thick support rods welded to the seat frame to cut their way through the foam and tear the fabric. You can see it a little on these photos:
As you can see, after I removed the seat cover, I unpicked the seam all around the edge. I then unpicked the damaged sections, and used them as templates to cut out new peices from an undamaged seat back I had spare. I then topstitched the peices and sewed it all back together using an industrial sewing machine that's twice as old as I am:
To stop this kind of tear recurring, I took some seatbelt webbing, wrapped it around the top edges of the support wire where it contacts the padding, and did a dodgy hand stitch to keep it together:
This distributes the force in this area over a wider area under the foam, so that it shouldn't be able to cut in like it did before. End result:
I'm planning to re-web my seatbelts myself soon, so the industrial sewing machine will get some more use shortly.
Ehh, I'll throw a few pictures in here now and the broad strokes. I thought I took a good "before" picture, but apparently not. There was a big tear in the vinyl side of the cloth seat on my 80, and a tear in the top fabric where it meets, and breaks in the piping on the edge. This is caused by the old foam breaking down over time, and allowing some thick support rods welded to the seat frame to cut their way through the foam and tear the fabric. You can see it a little on these photos:
As you can see, after I removed the seat cover, I unpicked the seam all around the edge. I then unpicked the damaged sections, and used them as templates to cut out new peices from an undamaged seat back I had spare. I then topstitched the peices and sewed it all back together using an industrial sewing machine that's twice as old as I am:
To stop this kind of tear recurring, I took some seatbelt webbing, wrapped it around the top edges of the support wire where it contacts the padding, and did a dodgy hand stitch to keep it together:
This distributes the force in this area over a wider area under the foam, so that it shouldn't be able to cut in like it did before. End result:
I'm planning to re-web my seatbelts myself soon, so the industrial sewing machine will get some more use shortly.
Just finished the cushion replacement. Easy job due the write up! Used a pair of Amazon hog pliers and rings. Piece of cake! Thanks!
