Stock Seat Rebuilt Part 2

[Moby]

A couple of years back I rebuilt my stock from seats in my FJ-62. I used Specter's replacement bottom seat foam and marine grade vinyl upholstry and added seat heaters. This was a substantial improvement over the previous state of the seats. More importantly my wife loved it

The only remaining problem was the lumbar support or lack thereof. A couple of months ago Car Craft did a short series on rebuilding stock seats. I decided to give a couple of their suggestions a try.

I added a layer of 1/4" closed cell foam to the entire seat with extra in a couple of really broken down places. Easy to cut with shop scissors. Used spray foam glue from Home Depot to stick it to the stock foam. I also tied the springs together with coat hanger wire.

I haven't really tested it out yet but so far there is a noticeable difference. The upholstry fits much tighter and there is much less sag when sitting in the seats. My wife says that she noticed the improvement immediately.

Probably $40 total for one seat, with the foam being the bulk of the cost. Took me about 4 hours to do one seat (however it went faster this time since I had already done the upholstry once and knew how it comes off and goes on).

 

[Moby]

First pic is of the lumbar and upper section of the seat with the new foam. I had only planned on doing the lumbar but the rest was in such bad shape that I decided to recover everything. Second pic is the worst spot. These holes got an extra layer of foam (third pic) to build that section back up.

 

[Moby]

Here is a shot from the top. I wrapped the upper section all the up and over the back. For the sides I wrapped from the front around the side, brought the excess together at the shoulder area and trimmed the excess.

Also a shot of how I tied the springs together. There top and bottom springs just have the coat hanger wrapped around them. For the center spring there is a hog ring tying the coat hanger to the center spring. The foam is supposed to keep the hog rings from slipping.

Edit: Forgot that I also added some 1/2" closed cell foam under the springs to keep them in better contact with the foam.

 

[Moby]

Last ones. Seat fully re-foamed with seat heater re-installed ready for the upholstry and the seat back in. Kind of hard to tell but the upholstry is much tighter fitting. The new layer of foam should also make the upholstry last longer by preventing it from rubbing against the frame of the seat where the foam had broken down.

 

[alex e]

COOL! How do you deal with the upholstery? How does it come off and go back on?

 

[Moby]

Hog rings. Nothing really technical about it but you absolutely have to have hog ring pliers. Snip off the old hog rings with a good wire cutter (wire cutters recessed into pliers won't work, the nose must be a cutter).

 

[hank14]

Is the SOR seat bottom made of closed cell foam, or another type of foam? I'm asking because I have contacted a couple of foam suppliers looking for blanks to cut my own seat bottoms and hopefully do 2 for the price of one.

Here's one company:

Boat Cushions, Foam, Mattress Replacement, Camper Chair Couch Filling

I emailed them and this is what they asked:

"Are you looking for a very hard foam like closed cell foam or something firm, but not closed cell foam? We cannot make anything molded like that because our foam is sold in sheets. Once I get more of an idea of what kind of foam you are looking for I can send you some samples if you provide an address."

 

[Moby]

I would guess open cell but that's just a guess - it's molded. You could also consider just refoaming your existing seat cushion like I did with my seat back cushion.

 

[alex e]

Hey Moby where did the seat heater kit come from and was the wiring install difficult?

 

[Moby]

I picked up the heaters at a local auto/boat upholstry place but you can get them online. Wiring, at least for my kit, was very easy. It came with a nice harness that only needed positive and ground hookups. I ran positive to the battery and then through a relay that is ignition hot. The instructions said to just tap an ignition hot lead to power the heaters but I think that the draw on them are 10 amps per seat on high and I did not want an extra 10 amps running through any stock wires.

 

[valdezhilander]

I used to work in the tour bus (coach) industry as a mechanic and one of the "other duties as assigned" was to recover pasenger seats, hundreds of seats. Tour bus seats are very expensive to replace so I would cut pieces of foam to go on the seat and on the back and attach them w/ 3M Upholstery Adhesive. Sometimes, if the cushions are in good shape we would pull the new cover right over the old one, this would stiffen the seat up a little and avoid tearing the foam up while trying to get the old cover off. One trick to getting tight covers on is to cover the foam w/ a trash bag then slide the cover on right over the bag and the foam, works great. Hog ring pliers are a great investment even if you only do seat work occasionally they make a much more professional looking job. Also, most local upholstery shops will sell you pieces of seat spring pretty cheap, I've even had them give me scrap pieces of spring. Another source for extra spring material is the wrecking yard, a sharp knife and a good pair of dikes is all you need and most seat springs are similar enough that it won't matter what you cut it out of. You can us hog rings to tie your new spring pieces to the old ones.

 

[alex e]

cool...

 

[Carpe Discus]

I've searched, but I can't find part 1. Have a link? Does part 1 exist? I can't find a back issue link for Car Craft, either--any ideas on how to get a hold of the article?

I need new upholstery badly. The main wire (edge wire?) that makes up the major bottom seat support is broken. It's about 1/8" stainless (I think) wire, quite stiff, and the wire pokes up and invariably pokes a hole in the pants I'm wearing. I'd love to rebuild the seats as I can't swing the $600 for new upholstery at the moment. Any idea on where to pick up this wire, and how to bend it well once I get it?

 

[Moby]

No part one - I didn't take any pics of that work. It was the SOR seat bottom foam and upholstry and seat heaters. Sorry, I don't have a link to the CC article, just the print version. Also not sure about the part of yours that is broken but the seats don't have service parts so it will need to be something custom by you or an upholstry shop (see the post mid way through this topic about custom spring work for some ideas). Or maybe just get a used seat?