Take your new seat cover, and feed the old “U” wire through the sewn pocket for the wire. This will take a bit of time, or you will poke the wire right through the material. It can be done, so patience is the key! Now mark the back of the seat cover, at dead center, just above the pocket with the wire in it. This is the point you will marry to the seat foam, and place your first hog ring!
Start the process by pressing a hog ring through the back of the seat foam where your center mark is, and push the wire “U” at the marked portion of the cover into the foam’s grove. Clamp down on the hog ring until it closes and examine your work. If the seat cover doesn’t look centered on the foam NOW IS THE TIME TO FIX THAT! Continue hog ringing the seat cover to the foam, following a pattern of side to side (making sure you place one at approximately the same distance from center on both sides). I believe that I ended up with some 7 rings used at this stage (Figure 5).
With the seat cover connected to the foam you now need to hog ring the second “U” to the seat foam. I simply hog ringed to the hog rings used to connect the seat cover. Trust me, this foam is going no where!!(Figure 6)
Now place the foam on the seat frame and flip it over so you are looking through the seat frame at the back of the seat foam. Begin hog ringing the seat frame to the foam, going through the second “U” wire installed in step 7 (Figure 7).
With the cover connected to the foam, and the foam connected to the frame, you are now ready to begin pulling the cover over the back of the frame! I did my work in the evenings, so I utilized twin standing halogen lamps (300Watts) to heat up the vinyl. The vinyl will be more supple if you get it warm. I held the cover up to the lamps until the vinyl was Hot to the touch. Don’t forget to reuse the seat foam back piece you saved from Step 2!!!. Begin on one side, and begin working the cover over the foam & frame. Take your time, and you can do it without ripping any seams
Once the seat cover is over the back, begin reassembling the seat in reverse order from what you did in Step 2. The final product should look like this (Figure 8). You will need to cut holes for the lever that controls the “flip-forward-ability” of the seat, but that should be self explanatory!
Set aside the now complete seat back (Figure 9), and begin on the seat bottom. The steps for the bottom are exactly the same as the top!
Here are the steps in photos! (Figures 10-12)
With the top & bottom reupholstered, reassemble the seat, again using the longer flange as the point to pull & slip over the seat bottom’s pivot rod. Reinstall all the removed hardware & plastic components (Figure 13).
Pages: 1 2 3
This entry was posted
on Friday, January 2nd, 2009 at 6:21 pm and is filed under Interior.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
October 7th, 2010 at 1:44 pm
I found it useful to poke some wire through the channel in the seat foam (seat side), hooking the listing rods in the seat cover to the u-wire on the back of the foam. I then pulled the wire tight, aligning the upholstery listing rod and the u-wire while also pinning the two wires closer together than the foam to listing rod method above.
A further advantage of this method is that you can test fit the cover before installing hog rings. A disadvantage is that it takes longer.
I would also suggest trying to find hog rings that are a little longer and a little narrower than standard. Even using the wire trick, I had to take multiple shots at some areas as the listing rods and u-wire are difficult to catch with the hog ring.
October 23rd, 2010 at 5:31 pm
I find it hard to believe that the foam will hold the hog rings to the U-wire. I wanted to verify that is how you do it before I shred the foam.
November 6th, 2010 at 12:02 pm
After finally getting around to it, I see that the wire rides in the foam and is connected to the wire in the frame.
I followed DuctTape’s advice and just used baling wire to hold the wire in the foam to the wire in the frame and have only used the hog rings to attach the upholstery to the frame, which is turning out to be much more difficult that I expected. I don’t know if my seats aren’t purely stock or of Wild Horses sent me the wrong covers (though the box says their for a 68-69 Mustang) but I’ve had a hard time stretching the covers to fit the frame and I don’t think there is any way I can get them to cover the same area as the originals.
July 23rd, 2013 at 1:24 pm
I know this tech article is old, but I followed the instruction from here and everything went great. I would like to add a couple of comments from my experience. The covers I ordered didn’t have the plastic clips for the seat backs like the OEM did. I took new and old covers to a shop and had the guy sew them onto the new covers, cost my 25.00 and didn’t have to do some many hog ring clips. Also you have to install the U-wire inside the covers then attach to the foam inside the little channel. If your wire is like mine were they are rusted, they are really hard to slide through the pocket under the cover. After fighting with the first seat I used the white scotch tape and wrapped the U-wire and it pretty much slid in with no problem.