Well I finally bit the bullet and decided it’s time to sort out my rear seat.
My car’s rear seat had gone missing and some years ago I grabbed a unit from a Mk2 2door.
It needed repair and got chucked in the shed and forgotten about for at least 3 years.
Not being sure which direction I was going with the car meant there was no rush to fix it.
I thought I might cage the car and run 2x seats only.
However since deciding to set up the car so I can rego it I figured I should attempt the task of fixing the rear seat.
Now being a tight arse meant it wasn’t going to be done by any professional, This was going to be a back yard job in the true sense. How hard can it be??
Step 1
Throw the seat in and try and get motivated, even by my poor standards it’s not going to pass!
Step 2
I find the best way to get started on a project is to pull it apart and start. This has two benefits. It forces you to start the project and forces you to set aside money and time to complete it !
The seat and frame had seen better days, most of the fame was rusted and a little bent, Being a Mk2 seat it didnt fit properly, The first thing to do after stripping down the seats was to weld in some reinforcing and cut some metal, When this was done I cleaned the frame with some acid and treated the rust followed by a coat of KBS rust seal paint in gloss black.
Step 3
With the seat frame sorted it was time to look at the fabric and foam. I looked at the existing seat that I planned to use as the pattern for the new seat and the more I thought about it the less I liked it.
Trying to keep it simple I didn’t like my chances of successfully creating a seat cover with all the stitching required. I have seen MK1 seats in magazines and some are nowhere near as curved as this seat/foam. So being a lazy bugger I chose the easier option.
I figured some fabric and vinyl and some flat foam would suffice.
So it was off to the upholstery supplier for some foam, some hessian and some cheap “foam backed “ fabric in plain black.
Step 4
The next step was to sort out the seat pattern and test the technique for creating the pattern in the seat.
I sandwiched some foam between some fabric and some backing material and then press ganged my elderly mother to stitch it together!!! The results were acceptable so I decided to use the technique and bit the bullet and started cutting up the material.
This is the backing fabric I used to sandwich the foam between the material , the hem at the front allows me to insert a wire that I can secure the material down to the frame and create a seam to give the seat some shape.
I had also decided that I was not going to use any Vinyl in the job, I had planned to use it on the sides you can’t see, but figured the less seams the better, so the seat would be completely covered in the material in one piece that would hopefully look neater as I could hide the seams and joins. The only problem was that the quantities would be wrong and the material I had bought to do both back and base would only do one part. Opps!!
So I made a mental note to get back to the supplier to get more material before the batch changed and then the seatback and base would not match.
Here is the seat base with the pleating and stitching, before all the sides are pulled tight and secured with glue and ties. It is a good time to check the build, test fit and fix and redo anything that didn’t look right.
A couple of pics of the base installed, Happy with the outcome and time to take a little break, get more fabric and think about the rear back part and try and get it to match the base.
Here is the start of the rear part of the seat, first part is to cut and fit and glue the foam, I used 25mm foam and doubled it up, gluing the two pieces together with some 3M spray adhesive at $40 a can yikes.
Step 5
Revisiting my new best friend at the upholstery supplier to get more fabric, my original estimate for the seats was about 0.5m for base and 0.5 for the back, I bought over 1.5 thinking I would have more than enough, but my change of plan in deciding to use the fabric to cover the whole seat meant I faced some new problems.
Firstly I grabbed the last of the fabric the guy had, 1.2M which I figured would be more than enough and headed home.
Setting up the seat base and the back and throwing the new fabric over the back rest highlighted something I had forgotten to account for. Fabric looks a different shade depending on how the light falls on it and the direction of the weave. So now I had a Black Base and a grey back rest!! No big deal I will flip the material and the pattern will all run the same way and all fixed.
Well almost, the escort seat is about 1250mm wide and I had just purchased the last 1.2m of fabric .
F**K ,F**K, F**K, Think Think Think!!
After reassessing the situation I figured I had to add some panels to the side, taking note of the weave so I didn’t have grey stripes on the side! And make it all fit.
So after going the all the trouble of avoiding having visible seams I had to accept defeat, but I made sure I reinforced them and minimised them as best I could. Here is a pic of the reinforcing of the seam.
Finished
Rear seat finished, could be better but it is an improvement and acceptable for a car that was/is never gonna be a concors resto, Still much better than before!!
The fabric I used was a close match to the Autotechnica seats I fitted to the front and because its plain black It should match any upgrade to the front seats.
One final mod was to remove the horrible tab that secures the seat base. The base of the seat is secured with a self tapper above the trans tunnel. I removed it and fitted some brackets so the seat could be installed and pushed in , it then springs forward and locks in neatly.
