'Rebuilding' a driver's seat with parts from a passenger seat

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Just a place holder for now until I get some pics up but over the weekend, having wondered about it for ages, I finally got round to rebuilding my driver's seat, by using the bolsters and material from a mint passenger seat.

 

Every Corrado I've seen has mint rear seats and barely touched passenger seats. Clearly the Corrado was popular with recluses! :D

 

Now that thigh bolsters are obsolete, pilfering parts from passenger seats may be the only option.

 

The trouble is, it's not just the foams that wear, but also the cloth / leather too.

 

The good news is the Driver's and Passenger seat parts are directly interchangable. It's only the cloth covers that differ, to accomodate the left and right handed adjustment levers etc.

 

I'll show you what I mean later but you don't notice this at all on the bum half of the seat.

Edited May 8, 2012 by Kevin Bacon

[ben_wooduk 0]

Would be good to see this, how did you remove the foam?

 

The last bolster I removed was glued on and I literally needed to destroy it to remove.

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Everything in the upper seat, including the one peice shoulder / torso bolsters just comes out nice and easy. Yeah, on the bottom half of the seat, the bolsters are indeed glued to the frame, but on the 3 or 4 cloth seats I've pulled apart, it's not glued on so much that you can't get the bolster off in one peice.

[ben_wooduk 0]

Suddenly the cost of a second hand passenger seats goes through the roof :lol:

[Yandards 0]

Easy enough to do but you need to unpick a lot of wire retaining tags that need to be refitted to get this to work.

 

The back rest foam is the same as a mk 2 Golf and is still available from VW (IIRC), so as there are a lot more of them out there that is an easier source for that part.

[davidwort 0]

I used some old seats to replace the driver's leg bolster and swapped the covers around from passenger to driver's side too, the most annoying thing about the base were the two rivets holding the rear of the seat base covers in position as you need to snip or drill them out.

Took the opportunity to put all the covers through the washing machine too :)

I didn't do the seat backs as it looked like too much trouble, would be interested to see how it went though.

I guess a second seat tilt lever surround trim wouldn't look too bad on the inner sides of the seat backs if you swapped the covers from side to side, just leave the levers out? Not sure how else you could disguise it.

[Kevin Bacon 5]

I kept back some material to fill in the holes with, but it will always be noticable. So this isn't really for concours cars :lol: I don't mind tbh. I'd rather have supportive and comfortable seats than perfect looking ones!

[Jim 1]

Look forward to having a read of this when you post the info up Kev! :)

[Kevin Bacon 5]

I uploaded the pics to Photobucket last night, so just need to collate it into some kind of guide now!

 

It's worth the effort just to see two equally mint front seats in the car :D

[Supercharged 2]

Easy enough to do but you need to unpick a lot of wire retaining tags that need to be refitted to get this to work.

 

 

Just cut them with snips - replace with plastic cables ties... (Kev told me to do this to save weight)

[Kevin Bacon 5]

PMSL :lol:

 

The wire retainers you just twist off with strong pliers and then reuse them again afterwards, or use cable ties, which ever is easier.

[Kevin Bacon 5]

OK, here we go then. It's not mega detailed, but hopeyfully you'll get the idea.

 

Here is some typical wear you see on a driver's seat (lower half). Passenger one on the left:

 

 

 

Once the foam loses it's strength and shape, the material starts to go to:

 

 

So, to rebuild the bottom half, start by seperating the top and bottom half of the seat. First you need to remove the plastic hinge covers by locating the 3 blind dowels on each side and pushing them through. One of the dowels hits the plastic trim on the side of the seat (you will see which one), so push it out backwards with a small screwdriver from behind, then pull it out with pliers.

 

Once the trims are off, remove the circlip on each hinge then remove the top half of the seat.

 

Remove all trims etc from the lower half of the seat, then turn it over.

 

Now you need to remove all these wire retainer clips by twisting them apart with decent pliers.

 

 

The back of rear part of the bolster cloth is held onto the seat fram by these rivets. I used a 3mm drill and drilled them out.

 

 

Once that's done, unclip the rear of the bum pad from the frame by levering out the long cardboard strip. Put the bum pad to one side.

 

Now remove the bolster cloths. These are held in place by U shaped plastic strips as well as the wire clips. Fold the cloth over like this and then detach the plastic clips.

 

 

Now carefully ease the foams off the frame slowly by working your fingers along to break the glue seal. Even if you are binning them you should still do this to minimise the amount of foam left on the frame. Some seats don't use much glue. Mine came off easily with not much residude.

 

 

Repeat on the passenger seat and you will be left with a bare driver's frame and pile of soft furnishings from the passenger seat.

 

 

 

Clean up the frame to remove any glue and old foam. I used glue thinners.

 

Then take your passenger foams and and shove them on basically. You'll notice the right side is slightly different, but we'll come to that in a bit.

 

 

 

This is the main difference. You just need to notch a section out of the foam as this is where the plastic side trim will attach later. I recommend a scalpel for cutting the cloth and foam, or a very good stanley knife.

 

 

Don't glue the middle of the bolsters onto the frame or you'll struggle to get them on. Instead, fit the bolsters, then spray glue onto the frame and the foams just at the front and back. I used this glue, which you can get from B&Q. When the glue has air dried, press the foams firmly onto the frame to stick them down permanently.

 

 

I always like to improve, so I reinforced the right bolster with some self adhesive felt, which John Lewis sell by the meter. This makes the bolster feel much firmer and also stops it going out of shape and crumbling to bits.

 

 

Stick the other foam on and then put your passenger side cloths on

 

 

On the right side cloth, you will need to make the highlighted cuts to accomodate the side trim. The cuts on the other side of the seat won't be visible as the transmission tunnel plastics nicely hide them :D

 

 

Refit passenger side bum pad and you have a nice new looking driver's lower half :D

 

 

One completed seat, made up of all passenger soft furnishings on driver's side frames.

 

[Kevin Bacon 5]

I have skipped over rebuilding the upper half of the seat but it's the same process. Here are the core sections.

 

 

And here's the reason I rebuilt my upper half. Very little lumbar support due to collapsed padding which had gone all flat and manky. I also reinforced the wire frame with loads of duct tape in that area.

 

 

As previously mentioned, the only downside to doing this is holes in the upper half.

 

 

But when the final result is two 'as new' looking front seats, that does not bother me :D

 

I will cover the holes with some spare material as neatly as I can and update the thread with what that looks like.

 

Edited May 9, 2012 by Kevin Bacon

[Supercharged 2]

Great work and pics as always - you may want to investigate the place 2cc used in Bristol (I think) to do his as they had the VW cloth on the roll... just thinking it might be worth you sending bits down to them.

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Cheers Schteeeeve

 

Went out for a spin it in last night and the difference a fully supportive (and comfortable) seat makes is amazing. It's like suspension that deterioates over time. You get used to it. Replace it and it feels like a new car. Same with seats!

[Yandards 0]

Great write up Kev, worth noting that you can get new metal clips from VAG for pennies if folks want to use those instead of cable ties.