Recovering the Seat

The seat was in pretty bad shape; torn, painted and the pan was cobbled together with course thread studs and braze. This was done with the seat assembled which wasn’t kind to the foam. The braze was removed from the pan and threaded inserts were turned and mounted to plates that cover the damaged metal. This was tig welded into place and the pan was painted with my other frame parts.  A picture of this fix is in my “Fixing Metal Parts” post. My seat edging, which keeps the pan from tearing the cover, was worn through so I purchased new edging from McMaster car. It is very close in dimension to the original.

New edging going on the pan. 

A cover was purchased from Northwest Classic Seat Covers, an ebay store. After it arrived I stretched it out over the foam and let it sit for a while to ease out the wrinkles, which were not too bad.  The cover is very well made and I found it fit the original foam and pan well. Directions were provided and marks on the cover indicated the location of the edge and trim holes. A tip of heating the vinyl was closely followed and key to good results. 

The simple fixture I made to wrap the seat. My best friend the hair dryer along side it. 

One thing I did not like was wrapping the seat with it upside down on the table. I did not get a sense of how well it was being pulled over the pan. I made a fixture which put the seat in its upright position. I found this to work well and like the final results. Pictures follow.