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Date:         Sat, 22 Jul 1995 07:06:42 -0700 (PDT)
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         "Tobin T. Copley" <tobin@freenet.vancouver.bc.ca>
Subject:      Re-padding seats: HOW TO

On Fri, 21 Jul 1995, Lisa Quinn wrote:

> I'd like to repad the seats in the westy. They have good fabric, but > the padding is shot. Hard on the fanny on long trips. Anyone here > done this? Is it complicated and hard? Do you have to cut the old covers > off? My husband thinks we should by some of those stretch seat covers, > lay the padding on the old seats, and put the seat covers over them. > Should I take the easy way out and do this?

Repadding your seats (your westy's!) will make a huge difference in the size of your smiles while driving your westy. Christa and I did this in our '76, and it was pretty straightforward, relatively easy, and worked out very well.

Don't listen to your husband. Putting another cover over the old will be unsatisfactory, and will continue to trash the original seat covers. Don't take the 'easy' way out.

How to do it: Remove the seats from the vehicle. In my bus, the driver's seat just slides forward all the way off the seat rails. You may have to depress a lever somewhere to get the seat past a stop designed to keep the seat from derailing unintentionally. Snoop around as you're trying it, and you'll figure it out--this isn't rocket science. I forget for the moment how the passenger seat comes out, but it's fairly straight forward as well.

OK, you've got the seats out and they're sitting on your living room floor. Look at the underside of the seats. The covers are attatched to the seat by little pointy metal tabs spaced around the edge of the bottom cover, and the tabs hold down a piece of wire that goes around the bottom edge of the bottom cover. I hope this is making sense. Look at the seat as you read this, and you'll see what I'm trying to say. Bend these tabs back with a large flat head screwdriver or vise-grip or whatever works for you. Try not to tear the fabric though!

The bottom seat cover should just lift off now. The cover, as you'll see, holds the padding over a bed of springs. CAREFULLY remove the padding--it'll be messy, 'cause it'll want to fall apart. You'll be using this old padding as a pattern when you go to the foam store to buy new replacement padding.

The cover for the back of the seat is secured in a similar manner. The metal tabs are located at the bottom of the seat back, on the back edge. The cover lifts off by working it straight up. If you've got headrests, just leave the cover dangling just below the headrest inside out. Carefully remove the padding for the seat back, draw the pattern for this one too.

Clean the frame of the seat up. Check for broken springs, hoping you have none. Check the condition of the covers. Mine had several holes where the springs had poked through, so I patched them from the inside with pieces of canvas fabric. Draw your patterns for replacement padding using the old pads. Leave a comfortable margin all around--you can always cut stuff off if you've got too much.

Go to your FLFS (Friendly Local Foam Store) and get replacement padding, showing your patterns to the folks there, explaining exactly what they are for. We had them laminate two types of foam together: a high density foam for the bottom, and some softer stuff for the top layer. The also have a band saw so they can cut the foam to exactly fit your pattern. We really went for the high-priced stuff, and the foam cost us about $40.00 CDN to do but drivers and passengers seats. But we were heading off for a 3 month driving trip, and we wanted to have comfy tushes for the 15,000 miles the trip would take us. And we felt like big shots. ;)

Stop by a fabric store or any place you can get a sheet of heavy canvas. You'll need this. If you had any broken springs in the seat bottom, go to a lumber yard and get a small piece of thin plywood as well. If your seat cover were absolutely shot, order some replacement covers from one of those places in the back of VW mags. Maybe someone on the list has a good source for these. Oh, yeah, and pick up a couple of rolls of duct tape.

Go home, check the padding for fit. Better too big than too small! Take your canvas and use your patterns to cut the canvas into padding-shaped pieces, but make them a bit bigger than the padding.

You're ready for re-assembly. If you've got broken springs, place a pice of plywood over that are of the seat frame. Cut it fairly large, so it covers a good part of the seat. Take your canvas, and duct tape it securely to the outer edge (frame) of the seat. Leave some slack in it so that it won't tear of the edge when you sit in the seat. Remember how the seat bows? You need extra fabric to allow it to do that. Before moving on to the next seat part, put on the padding you had cut, and tape it down really securely. Really securely--and allt the way around. Tape doesn't want to stick to the foam, as you'll see, so make it secure and work fast. Use the tape also to get rid of the lumpies around the edges. Make your work neat. Slip the cover on again to hold everything together. You'll need someone to help you with this assembly part. Work your way through all four seat cushions (2 on both seats). Wrestle the cushions down enough to let you trap the little wire in the bottom of the covers with those metal tabs on the seat frame. It may help to have a friend sit in the seats to load them when you try to do this. Get all the tabs done up.

Sit in the seats and admire your work. Big difference, right? Go re-install the seats in your bus, and smile really wide as the countryside slides by.

Happy camping!

Tobin

------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tobin T. Copley Currently ============= (604) 689-2660 Occupationally /_| |__||__| :| putta tobin@freenet.vancouver.bc.ca Challenged! O| | putta '-()-------()-' Circum-continental USA, Mexico, Canada 15,000 miles... '76 VW Camper! (Mango)


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