Restoring seats

[DRAM]

I found a guy in Victorville, Ca for $550.00 ! I havn't seen his work but my friend said his good.

[Qst4Speed]

I see all these answers to posts all the time and they never answer a dudes question. You guys gave ideas on having his seats recovered. Hell, almost any upholstery place can do that. But the other half of his question was having the foam replaced as well. I need this done as well. And after reading this post for the last 10 mins I have exactly no more info than i did before.

Can anyone refoam the seats like factory or not?

 

Rick

[wolfsquest]

The upholstery shop normally does that too, if you tell them it's needed.

[Indiana]

The foam is molded as it is with 99% of all modern auto seats (after say mid 60's), it was injection molded with metal parts, either plates or wires embedded and some had pockets to place the plates inside of and no, there is no one that can duplicate that, you can try to glue in place the wires but they will not be as strong.  You must find some higher density foam is yours in missing or severly damaged and not cheap white foam from a fabric store.  Trying to use white foam will last about a week and you will be sitting on a wire that pokes you in the a** and it will tear apart from the inside out, the 86/87 seats had 1/2" thick pillow foam on top of the molded foam and that was what helped make all those wrinkles they try to tell you never exsited and so far I've not seen anyone take the time to make a proper 86/87 cover.  There are places that deal only in foam, there is one in Indianapolis on English Avenue.  What did you expect to find here, a link to a "kit"?  The title says "restoring seats" not recovering seats, there is no comparison in those two terms.  What you have seen to date were recovered not restored, I have seen nobody that has truely made a replacement cover.

[STARRARI]

My seats were done for $300 for the pair. It's a little shop in Little Havana in Miami. I can get more pics. It was done in  synthetic leather (vinyl) but it feels and looks great. The guys at the Gainsville meet got to see them.http://www.we-todd-did-racing.com/wetoddimage.wtdr/wNzA2MTA3NnM0MTNkZmQzMXk1NDE%3D.jpg%20%C2%A0%20%C2%A0%20%C2%A0 If anyone wants I can get the number, also they dont really speak too much english.

[HobO89Quest]

wow, the driver seat looks awesome!  Do you have any more pics?

 

-K  y  l  e

[Star_V8_Quest]

First to the subject of the 100,00 porsche and needing a hole fixed i the leather.He would get the whole seat needs replacing....if he has that much cash,he isnt going to patch

I will say again,the best leather sells in hides,the smaller stuff is not the same.And when you try to patch spots,you have to try to math grains.....and colors.Very annoying when you cant find the correct style.Whats left?Repair the whole seat

Now to your comment"if you compare that ebay leather with the expanded vinyl you bought in a fabric store for that red and black seat I can imagine that yes you would come to that conclusion "    ......It wasnt bought in store hoss,It was ordered from Masco,the same people we have bought our materials from since 84.If you need,I can show your the price for vinyl and the price for leather....and if you want,I can show you the price for mohare(sp?)..I think its $185 a square yard  

[puma]

Sorry but I lost his info when I trashed my old computer. But I went out and found the box he shipped my springs in and found his name and address. I won't post his actual address on here but his full name is:

 

Jonathan  Ficucell

 

Woodland Hills, CA

 

Maybe you can do a search and find him on here.

Hope it helps,

Rusty

 

Thats who I bought my quest from and it has leather seats... did jonathan mention what car he restored the leather on?

[Indiana]

First to the subject of the 100,00 porsche and needing a hole fixed i the leather.He would get the whole seat needs replacing....if he has that much cash,he isnt going to patch

I will say again,the best leather sells in hides,the smaller stuff is not the same.And when you try to patch spots,you have to try to math grains.....and colors.Very annoying when you cant find the correct style.Whats left?Repair the whole seat

Now to your comment"if you compare that ebay leather with the expanded vinyl you bought in a fabric store for that red and black seat I can imagine that yes you would come to that conclusion "    ......It wasnt bought in store hoss,It was ordered from Masco,the same people we have bought our materials from since 84.If you need,I can show your the price for vinyl and the price for leather....and if you want,I can show you the price for mohare(sp?)..I think its $185 a square yard  

I don't need prices for anything, I have my own prices sheets.  You can get the leather at the DEALER, only for a few cars you can do this afaik last one was red for a vette, but I have did it this way in the past many times and it is very expensive and I have tried to tell you this but you won't believe me for some reason.  There is no issue with matching color or grains as this is the exact same stuff the car was made with, it is OEM in nature.  Concerning "Masco" I had never heard on them but from what I did find they don't appear to offer OEM goods, but may have replacements, they do specifically say "expanded vinyl" on their site and this is the kind of stuff you can buy at fabric stores perhaps not from that same vendor but it's pretty much all the same.  We have code books with actual samples and the #'s to order the OEM stuff and you buy it by the running inch.  Running inch being usually 54" wide as I stated before.  The stuff we handle is 90% new OEM yardage or truck load lots of OEM closeouts,  we have many 60's 70's OEM goods left.  Dad made a cover for a pool table out of a lavender fabric a few years ago that was OEM for a 1960 Cadillac Eldorado,  you don't want to know what that was worth and he just ruined it.  I don't let that happen anymore.  Yes we have the replacement stuff but it is not nearly as good.  As for patterns from old seat covers, this never works.  The vinyl shrinks and even if you try to flatten it out with an iron or heatgun you can't allow for the stretching and leather, would you like to try and make another set of large gloves for a particular set of blood soaked shrunken ones they had for an exhibit and think they will fit?  Would you buy a new pair of jeans, wash them then put in the dryer on high heat and expect to be able to cut them apart and use that for a pattern and expect to be able to button them up?  You must make use of the seat frame and fit each piece.  That is not hard to do.  On the seats that were 86/87s they were full of wrinkles and if you will notice those flattened out seams and the big crack between the bottom and the adjustable bolster, originally there was not a crack there and it looked just as the other seam in the bottom did and it appeared like the seat was all one piece but they do not now.  In addition all the seating surfaces with the exception of the headrest on that particular seat had 1/2 inch thick pillow foam on the entire seating area and the headrest it is inset opposed to not being added on top.  This top layer now being flat as a pancake should be removed and new glued on in its place.  this was what helped make the wrinkles show.  The wrinkles can and can't be easily duplicated because they were sort of an organized mess in the first place.  No pattern or precision to them, just scrunch up and the serged seams you see on the edges held those in place prior to each panel being attached to each other.  To date I have seen from no one a replacement that is even CLOSE to what they could call a seat that was "restored".  As for the mohare topic, there is no "mo" to get hair or fur from, all that is is wool fabric.  Wool fabric was the alternative to leather as the cotton fabrics had no longevity or strength.  The wool was added to offer the alternative to what looked like a bedsheet with printed patterns on it.  This made for a very plain interior.  Without looking in some books, I'll guess mohair made its debut in the late teens and ran into the early 30s.  There were no synthetic alternatives to leather and you couldn't make seat covers from paper so what was there?  Cotton, not very good in the sun, it stretches and wears poorly so they came up with weaving WOOL into the fabric backing making for a better appearance and much better durability.  Mohair is used on furniture as well.  The price of that stuff, yes it's high, low demand will do that plus it's not all the great to sit on, it itches if you actually find the real stuff and the fake stuff feels like plain velour.  

 

ok, your turn

 

I'll call masco in the morning I found their website, it has little info on it other than a phone # and that they also carry convertible tops.  We had to switch from Crown to Key for tops, seems someone bought out Crown, then closed up the place.  Hummmm wonder who did that?

[rigger]

Hmm just my 2 cents ( not that they matter too much) but I am just a shade tree mechanic at best, and I have totaly recovered my cousins 93 ranger seats ( this was 4 1/2 years ago) and they still look good. If you are decent at sewing ( of course you have to admit you sew and endure jokes, my alibi is that I am a parachute rigger and you have to know how to sew to fix parachute) you can do it. Indiana is right about not really being able to use the old seat at pattern because the material is different and streaches different. I just used it for a rough pattern, and then Hung a brick on a strip of the leather I used for like 2 days to figure out how much I should shorten the leather off of the pattern to compensate for the streach. It made putting the seat together a pain, but it was good because the leather did streach and loosen once he sat in it for some time.Remember Different weights of leather streach differently, and if the leather is off of a different cow, it will have a different grain (they just dot grow the same). It can be done by a novice. Like I said I did Jeffs 4 1/2 years ago and I just saw it christmas and it looks pretty good still ( of course he took really good care of it, and the person who owns it now dose also). I have just ordered leather to redo my seats and as soon as I get the right color of blue I am going to start to totaly redo them. I am useing some 1 inch thcik foam that I got out of a Pelican case ( really stiff crap, I have not noticed any deterioration of the 3 years I have observed it holding 50 lbs of weight) with 1/2 inches of polyester batting under it ( in between the springs and the foam), and topping that with 2 inch thick 4.5lb density visco-elastic memory foam ( think temperapedic). the leather will streatch and maybe get a few wrinkles, but it will be worth it for the comfy seat 8) 8) 8) The seat backs will be slightly different on how I do the foam( don't know how i will tackle that bear yet) Hopefully all will go well and buy Aug I will be sitting in comfort and style. I plan on takeing pictures. So far I have $320 into it.

 

Crump

[Star_V8_Quest]

I don't need prices for anything, I have my own prices sheets.  You can get the leather at the DEALER, only for a few cars you can do this afaik last one was red for a vette, but I have did it this way in the past many times and it is very expensive and I have tried to tell you this but you won't believe me for some reason.  There is no issue with matching color or grains as this is the exact same stuff the car was made with, it is OEM in nature.  Concerning "Masco" I had never heard on them but from what I did find they don't appear to offer OEM goods, but may have replacements, they do specifically say "expanded vinyl" on their site and this is the kind of stuff you can buy at fabric stores perhaps not from that same vendor but it's pretty much all the same.  We have code books with actual samples and the #'s to order the OEM stuff and you buy it by the running inch.  Running inch being usually 54" wide as I stated before.  The stuff we handle is 90% new OEM yardage or truck load lots of OEM closeouts,  we have many 60's 70's OEM goods left.  Dad made a cover for a pool table out of a lavender fabric a few years ago that was OEM for a 1960 Cadillac Eldorado,  you don't want to know what that was worth and he just ruined it.  I don't let that happen anymore.  Yes we have the replacement stuff but it is not nearly as good.  As for patterns from old seat covers, this never works.  The vinyl shrinks and even if you try to flatten it out with an iron or heatgun you can't allow for the stretching and leather, would you like to try and make another set of large gloves for a particular set of blood soaked shrunken ones they had for an exhibit and think they will fit?  Would you buy a new pair of jeans, wash them then put in the dryer on high heat and expect to be able to cut them apart and use that for a pattern and expect to be able to button them up?  You must make use of the seat frame and fit each piece.  That is not hard to do.  On the seats that were 86/87s they were full of wrinkles and if you will notice those flattened out seams and the big crack between the bottom and the adjustable bolster, originally there was not a crack there and it looked just as the other seam in the bottom did and it appeared like the seat was all one piece but they do not now.  In addition all the seating surfaces with the exception of the headrest on that particular seat had 1/2 inch thick pillow foam on the entire seating area and the headrest it is inset opposed to not being added on top.  This top layer now being flat as a pancake should be removed and new glued on in its place.  this was what helped make the wrinkles show.  The wrinkles can and can't be easily duplicated because they were sort of an organized mess in the first place.  No pattern or precision to them, just scrunch up and the serged seams you see on the edges held those in place prior to each panel being attached to each other.  To date I have seen from no one a replacement that is even CLOSE to what they could call a seat that was "restored".  As for the mohare topic, there is no "mo" to get hair or fur from, all that is is wool fabric.  Wool fabric was the alternative to leather as the cotton fabrics had no longevity or strength.  The wool was added to offer the alternative to what looked like a bedsheet with printed patterns on it.  This made for a very plain interior.  Without looking in some books, I'll guess mohair made its debut in the late teens and ran into the early 30s.  There were no synthetic alternatives to leather and you couldn't make seat covers from paper so what was there?  Cotton, not very good in the sun, it stretches and wears poorly so they came up with weaving WOOL into the fabric backing making for a better appearance and much better durability.  Mohair is used on furniture as well.  The price of that stuff, yes it's high, low demand will do that plus it's not all the great to sit on, it itches if you actually find the real stuff and the fake stuff feels like plain velour.  

 

ok, your turn

 

I'll call masco in the morning I found their website, it has little info on it other than a phone # and that they also carry convertible tops.  We had to switch from Crown to Key for tops, seems someone bought out Crown, then closed up the place.  Hummmm wonder who did that?

my turn?

pic is worth a thousand words?

here is mine?See how nice and tight the rear seats are...even managed to keep a couple of wrinkles in it like the leather ones had.

http://www.starquestclub.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2712

made from that "cheap" vinyl you like to harp on.Nice and soft and made from the seat patterns...you just have to learn to give a little and sew damn good... :wink: helps to have a steamer to stretch the wrinkles out.

on the subject of OEM leather...why would you want to pay so much for the stuff rom the factory when its cheaper to buy from places who sell this stuff for a living.

AND....you will not find my "cheap vinyl" in your local fabric store.

Ok,pics of your quest seats?

[conquestpa]

how about some pics?

[rigger]

Hmmm well Conquest Pa you can see his pictures if you click the little link he has in the last post..... not to bad if I say so my self. Now for the real post from me....... I just cant find the blue leather I want so Now I am open to color sugestions. The color I make the leather will be the theme for the whole car. I.E. when I get the money to paint it, and as much as I thionk your seats look good V* I DONT WANT RED. I was thinking of some sort of green, or maybe an eggplant color, but I cant find that either.

 

Crump

[Star_V8_Quest]

what color is your car?Mine is red so this color matches my car..

i was playing with my color adjustments...lime green seats.. :wink:

http://www.starquestclub.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=28784

are you still going with leather?

[rigger]

Yes i am still going with leather, but the wife has brought down the ax so i think i will just do it in all black so i can sell it. the car is all black so I guess it will work. Sucky thing is I recovered the stearing wheel in Black leather with blue frogskin hide on the top and bottom. i will get you a picture as soon as i get a replacement cable for our digital camera. Still hoping I can get some blue leather.

 

Crump