Hey everyone, thanks in advance for any info you might have.

I have a 40/20/40 bench front and need to think about replaceing the driver seat upholstery.

Does anyone know where I can get a replacement skin without going to the dealer? They wanted 800 for the foam and leather.


I dont want to do a cover, but if I do what have you all been happy with? I have seen the wet okole and those look like they would be fairly highquality.

 

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I dont think these will be particularly cheap, but they are most certainly OEM quality.

 

You could try a local auto upholsterer. I know of one local here that does excellent work. They can replace a single "pane" of material in a seat or the whole interior, leather or cloth. I am sure there should be a place near you that can do the same.

 

When comes time for me to replace mine.I will most certainly consider an auto upholsterer.I feel the the foam will need to be addressed for the wear they now have.Wether they(the foam) can be repaired or replace,is something to think about.
I have heard good things on the quality of those recomended above.

 

I've had great luck with local upholstery shops when going with cloth. However, when I asked about leather to re-uphoster a seat in another car I had, they told me it would cost more than what I could go buy another seat for. If someone can replace one worn panel rather than the whole seat as suggested by PHWLEE, then it may be something to look into.

 

The Katzkin leather interiors are supposed to be awesome. Per the old episode of TRUCKS you can install them yourself and they will look very professional.

http://katzkin.com/05/FC/mainFS.html

 

Those actually look fairly promising. the cost is 680-800 for most normal stuff. I think the set I was looking at was 779 and was a two tone with perforation like the factory.

There was a disclaimer there though that mentioned for the warranty to be valid the covers had to be installed by one of their installers.

 

Katzkin is one of the links I provided in my first post. Upholstery is what I do for a living.

Either of the places I listed above are OEM quality leather kits.

Although it takes somewhat of a knack and experience to get a full vehicle done at a quality level to pull into and display in a new car showroom, you could most certainly do this yourself.

Any decent upholstery shop should be able to replace a leather/vinyl panel on your seat. That could be pricey though, if they dont already have the correct color in their raw material stash.

As far as broken down foam goes, there are 3 different approaches you can take;

1- You can cut a section off a roll of foam (whichever thickness you choose, shops should have several choices on hand) and lay some adhesive down on your existing foam. This is the least scientific way of doing it, but I intend on doing it to my superduty---the foam is kind of sagging on the drivers side, and if you want to boost it up a little, it a very inexpensive method, and once the upholstery is on, you cant tell.

2- Steam it. An upholstery shop should have a steamer (not a steam cleaner-just a steamer) This heats leather and vinyl and makes it easier to stretch onto the seat foam for a better fit, and then after the install it will take out wrinkles.
Another nice use for them, is when you run the steam up into your foam cushion, you can watch it swell right up in front of your eyes.
We have to use this method a LOT in older cars that we re-upholster. You can only get so much out of it, but it does work, and shouldnt cost any extra.

3rd, buy new foam. Of all the years Ive worked in the industry, the above methods only didnt work ONCE, and we had to buy new foam.


If you do buy a new leather kit from either Katzkin or Classic (also sells under the name Roadwire) and you are going to install it yourself, IIRC, the Ford kits are generally fastened by velcro, which is a breeze.

Worst case scenario, is you'll need to hog ring it.

You'll want a pair of hog ring pliers (or a gun), several razor blades or a GOOD pair of scissors, a sturdy flathead screwdriver, and the basic sockets to get the seats out.

A source from which to get steam would be ideal, but you can do it without.

If I can think of anything else Ill post up, or if you have any questions, let me know.

 

I havn't heard of the steaming before. Hmm. I couldnt tell for sure from your post, do you put the leather on first and then steam it?

I redid the upholstery on my 66 and that was a hog ring festival. I also used new foam, since it was relatively inexpensive. The reason I give you this information is that I am wondering if I steamed the seats like you mention above if it will stretch the vinyl out a little to tighten it up more.

Thanks for the info. I still need to call the other place and see what their kits run.

 

Check out Ebay. There's a guy on there selling OEM seat foam for about $60-$75 per seat.

 

Steaming the material before install will make it easier to work with and stretch on.

Steaming the material after install can aid in taking out wrinkles.

A heat gun on leather (not vinyl) can make a shoddy job look 99.9%, but its dangerous and damages the leather in the long term.

 

I had an pro do custom two tone facxtory ford leather with flames that I designed. He added foam. Holoe thing cost me $850 for both front seats

 

I had wet okole on another vehical of mine and i had them custom made. If i remeber right, it cost something like $400 for the front and back seats. They are nice material (neoprean) and they can be removed easily to be washed if need be.

 

Ebay is a good place. Interior shops sell the factory seat covers on ebay quite often, when doing a custom job on a truck. The prices are fairly resonable.

 

Shoot, it doesnt even have to be a custom job. I dont know how many times I took off factory leather THAT STILL HAD THE PLASTIC COVER ON IT just because the customer wanted a slightly different shade of charcoal or tan or something.