Taking off seat fabric - any tricks? (adding heated seats)

isubsmith · #1 (**permalink**) 10-09-2007, 09:00 PM

Not sure what category to post this in, so hopefully someone here has some insight or moves it to a better category.

Anyway, I bought heated seat elements from heatedseatkits.com. For the driver and passenger seats. I was planning on installing them this weekend.

Are there any tricks to taking off and putting back on the upholstery on the front seats? I've had the seats out dozens of times, but never tried to take off the fabric.

I have an 06 F250 crew cab with the fabric 40/20/40 front seats.

Thanks.

Carlene · #2 (**permalink**) 10-09-2007, 11:04 PM

I don't know about your year seats. The only seats I've taken apart were the Recaro bucket seats from a 80's model mustang. If they haven't changed anything, there should be either small hooks (most likely) or hog-rings hooked to the seat frame. I don't know how far you need to take the covers off to do this install, but there is probably a place or two where the seams of the seat appear to be attached thru the foam. This would be a broad cloth type material that has a small bar running thru it. This bar (or bars) would be hooked somewhere beneath the seat with hog-rings. I don't know what you'll have to do to get to them because I had my springs and everything out for re-painting so mine was easy to find.

With any luck you will only need to loosen up the side materials though because putting the hog-rings back on was not fun. You have to have special pliers and the rings are pretty sharp. Have battle scars to prove it.

This is the best I can tell you right now from memory. Take a look under the seat and let me know if my description sounds like your seat looks.

isubsmith · #3 (**permalink**) 10-11-2007, 11:08 AM

I think I'll at least try to take the covers all the way off just to make it easier.

I actually got a pair of hog ring pliers in the "install kit", so hopefully they won't be too hard to replace, assuming there are some.

I haven't had any time to look unfortunately....

Thanks.

F350-6 · #4 (**permalink**) 10-20-2007, 09:01 PM

If you get this done be sure and tell us how it went. A few pics would be nice too. I'm thinking of doing this myself and would love to know what problems to look out for.

isubsmith · #5 (**permalink**) 10-20-2007, 10:20 PM

Well, funny you should ask....

I tried taking the seats apart tonight and wasn't successful so I was back here to ask
for more help.

Some problems:
1) I don't know how to get the lumbar adjust knob off. It appears I will need to take it off to get the bottom upholstery cover off. I tried prying on it quite a bit but I'm afraid of busting something. Basically, it blocks a plastic trim piece that needs to come off to get the last edge off the bottom. Once that trim piece is off, it looks like the bottom upholstery should come off.

2) I don't think the upper seat part will come apart from the lower seat part. Putting the heating element in the top looks like it would be doable without taking it apart, but boy would it be easier if I could get them apart.

I haven't gotten to the point of seeing how the horizontal ridges are held down, apparently those might have hog rings in them. But other wise, I haven't see any hog rings.

The upper seat upholstery is held on with two interlocking plastic strips (sort of "J" shaped). The bottom seat part has roughly 4 edges with the little "J" strips too.

I think if I can get the lumbar knob off I can probably do this.... But that certainly seems to be the limiting factor right now. Otherwise, it will just be a pain in the rear if I can't get the seat halfs apart.

All the wiring was in last weekend and I added the switches tonight too. That's the easy part for me though

F350-6 · #6 (**permalink**) 10-21-2007, 12:41 PM

I looked under my seat. It appears the lumbar knob attaches to it's cable & a plastic holder held on the seat with 2 screws. Have you tried unscrewing the cable assembly to see it you can disconnect the lumbar knob from the back side?

isubsmith · #7 (**permalink**) 10-21-2007, 02:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by F350-6

I looked under my seat. It appears the lumbar knob attaches to it's cable & a plastic holder held on the seat with 2 screws. Have you tried unscrewing the cable assembly to see it you can disconnect the lumbar knob from the back side?

On mine, I can see the two screws that hold the knob and the cable assembly to the plastic, but the screw heads are basically under the knob so no easy way to remove them.

I saw another post on here that said I just need to try harder with the whole prying the knob off, so I'm going to give that another shot today. I'll keep the seat installed for a little more leverage and see how it goes.

Carlene · #8 (**permalink**) 10-21-2007, 02:29 PM

The Mustang seat knobs were attached with those little star screws. I'd be real carefull before prying the knobs off. May not be able to get them back on.

F350-6 · #9 (**permalink**) 10-21-2007, 03:13 PM

You got me curious, mainly because I would love heated seats. I went outside and played with mine and just as I was about to give up I got it off. Unscrew the knob to remove the tension in the cable from the lumbar. I then stuck 2 fingers between the knob and the seat on each side of the knob and it just popped off. It came off so easy I was surprised. I snapped it back on and screwed the lumbar to about 1/2 way and tried again and the knob didn't want to come off.

Good luck and don't forget some pics along the way.

isubsmith · #10 (**permalink**) 10-22-2007, 08:52 AM

Yeah, I finally got the knob off yesterday and got one side done (passenger side). I ended up using a crowbar just because it had a wider area so I figured I might be pulling more evenly and less likely to break something. It pretty much popped right off.

I didn't try turning the knob first. I'm not sure why that would matter, but I'll try that on the driver's side.

I took pictures. I'll attempt to get them posted somewhere tonight.

Took about 2.5 hrs. Next one I figure will take maybe 1.5. It's not bad, it just takes some time to do a decent job. I only ended up with 2 cuts deep enough to bleed and about ten cuts total on my fingers.

All the metal edges are annoyingly sharp, just like inside the doors....

That time doesn't include wiring which was already done. I can detail that too, but my wiring is probably different than most people will do. I have a 0 gauge wire pulled inside for the amplifiers with a 150A fuse up front. That gives me a good 50-60A more to play with so I hooked the seats up to my fused distribution block.

There are hog rings in the horizontal stripes on the bottom and along the front-to-back ridges there. The upper seat had 3 hog rings in the upper most horizontal stripe and velcro everywhere else.

The heated seats come with zip ties for replacing the hog rings where the heating elements go, but we replaced everything else with metal rings, so I'd suggest getting a set of the hog ring pliers. You could replace them with needle nose pliers or something, but the hog ring pliers have a little grove that holds the metal strip for you. The heatedseatkits.com place has an install kit for like $15 that you can add to your cart when you are about ready to give them credit card info.

It takes a good 10 minutes to get to the point of being nice and toasty on the high setting. I'm imaging some of that is because the cloth doesn't conduct heat as well as leather would. But still, not bad. It will be nice to leave them on the high setting and use the remote start before hoping in the shower when the penguins and polar bears start moving back here.

Carlene · #11 (**permalink**) 10-22-2007, 10:50 AM

Thanks a bunch for the update and I'm glad that all worked out well.

Please do put some photos in your photo gallery. Although I don't need heated seats down here, I'd still like to see the process you went thru.

Oh yeah, glad you were able to keep the blood to a minimal.

isubsmith · #12 (**permalink**) 10-23-2007, 11:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by F350-6

You got me curious, mainly because I would love heated seats. I went outside and played with mine and just as I was about to give up I got it off. Unscrew the knob to remove the tension in the cable from the lumbar. I then stuck 2 fingers between the knob and the seat on each side of the knob and it just popped off. It came off so easy I was surprised. I snapped it back on and screwed the lumbar to about 1/2 way and tried again and the knob didn't want to come off.

Good luck and don't forget some pics along the way.

Writeup is here:
http://www.uidzero.net/pics/truck/truck.html

I have a few more pictures of my wiring that I can add at some point, but that is less generally useful I imagine.

F350-6 · #13 (**permalink**) 10-23-2007, 11:27 AM

Great write up. I guess I'll be trying this as soon as I can finish getting a shed built and have some time to spare. Starting with the passenger side sounds like a good idea in case it takes longer than expected and I end up having to drive around for a week with only 1 seat installed.

isubsmith · #14 (**permalink**) 10-23-2007, 11:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by F350-6

Great write up. I guess I'll be trying this as soon as I can finish getting a shed built and have some time to spare. Starting with the passenger side sounds like a good idea in case it takes longer than expected and I end up having to drive around for a week with only 1 seat installed.

That's what I figured as well... If I screw up something, it's not going to affect my ability to still drive around and I won't notice it every time I get in the truck.

I think the more time consuming part will be figuring out where and how you want the wiring to go. If I count the time for that, the project is well over the 12-15 hour mark, but that was from taking out the carpet, rerouting the wires (all the RCA cables used to go down the driver and passenger door channels. It was far too cramped in there), adding the 0ga distribution, etc, etc. If you can find somewhere in the main fuse panel to steal 20A, the wiring should be an hour or two I imagine.

If you get all the wiring done, you can do the seats at a more leisurely pace as well - ie, it's getting dark early up here so I need to get everything installed back in the truck by 7pm. The seats I can take inside and work on without having to be done early.

I never knew it got cold in Texas though. Why do you need heated seats there?

F350-6 · #15 (**permalink**) 10-23-2007, 12:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by isubsmith

I never knew it got cold in Texas though. Why do you need heated seats there?

Cold is all a matter of perception. I have no problem wearing long sleeves and walking around outside at jobsites all day in 100 degree weather, but if the low at night drops to around 35 I plug my truck in so the heater will work faster in the morning.

I can't stand the cold, even though my definition of cold is different than yours.