Ok, I thought I'd take a turn on this mod.

I have 4 kids so 2 of them sit in the back row. My oldest is tall enough that he needs a headrest, so here we are.

To start you have to strip off the seat back to the steel frame.
Remove the fabric by undoing the 2 strips at the bottom and remove the staples holding the flaps


Removing the entire seat back makes everything easier. For this you just have to remove the 4 torx bolts (2 on each side), then with the seat back folded down, push it down to the seat bottom to pop the two plastic plugs


Then remove the board backing and foam by removing the black plugs (3) to remove the foam and the hex head screws to remove the board.
You'll end up with a bare frame. Some of the frames have 3 vertical braces. Mine only had 1. I don't know what year mine came from.

 

Now time to build some posts for the headrest guides to mount into.

I got the guides from my old 2nd row seats. They weren't mounted in posts though so I couldn't just cut the old posts out.

So I got some 3/4", 0.065" wall tube from local hardware store. Cut it to length.


Cut the key in the posts for the guides to fit into. These prevent the guides from spinning. Just used an air cut off disc.

 

Unfortunately, the pipe is a little too big and you need the guides to fit tight in the posts or your headrests will wobble/jiggle/shake.

So I made a cut along their length


Then squeezed them tight, welded them, then ground them down clean.


Here are the four pieces all done. The guides fit nice and tight in them.

 

Next, you gotta decide where you want the headrests mounted on the back. I just started with as far to the outside as I could so that I was still drilling my holes on the straight part of the tube, before it curves down. I think the outside holes were 4.5" from the outside of the steel frame and the posts on the headrests are 7" apart.


I marked them, punched them, then pilot holed them. Then drilled them big enough to get a uni-bit into them to drill them out to 3/4" (just larger than my posts.

 

Test fitted the headrest with the guides and posts.


Here's a close up of the way the posts mount. The height of these is set by the thickness of the foam on top of the seat. I decided on 1 1/8" from the top tube of the frame to the underside of the release button.


Unfortunately, when I mocked this up with the seat foam and seat bottom, it looked like the headrests were a bit too far inward. AND, with my kids sitting on their booster seats in the back, they tend to sit to the very outside edge...... darn it. So I filled in the holes I had made with some sleeves (to regain the strength of the frame), and mounted the new holes a little further out.

 

Now, just gotta make sure the headrests are lined up.


Looks good and straight to me, so I tacked them here.


And here they are welded in. Make sure you take the guides out when you weld, or they'll be melted

 

So I laid the frame with the new posts in it on top of the foam, marked the foam and cut slots for the headrest posts and holes for the guides and posts. Just need to make sure the guides don't pinch a bunch of foam or they won't click all the way in.


And here I mocked it up without the leather cover


The only thing left was to put the leather cover back on (reverse of removing it), feel for the new posts and make either a circle cut or X cut on top of them in the leather and snap in the guides. Looks like I could have mounted the guides a touch higher to eliminate the dip in the cover.

 

Oh, the finished product. The headrests are lined up perfect with the lines of the seats, and they are nice and tight.... no jiggling.

 

Sweet! Nice job.

Waited for you to finish before I responded with a post.

Stewart

 

that is too freaking cool. great job. need to do this as well

 

Looks good.

 

Thank you for posting this. So the plastic guides and the headrests are from second row Excursion seats?

 

Yes the guides are from a 2nd row.

So I'll have 4 identical headrests in the truck.

Really though, you could use parts from any vehicle, the steps would be the same, just the dimensions and looks may be different

 

Great and useful information and pictures, reps sent.

 

This is totally fantastic, reps when i can..

Suddenly 2nd row cloth seats with tears and stains is on my wish list..

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