One seat is done...the other bottom is done and I'm half way through the other seat back...ALL of you who have done this are right: MY HANDS HURT LIKE HELL!
Butt, I can say, "Right, I recovered mine."

 

Lookin good....

 

good job.... we bought the hog ring pliers and stretcher pliers from Eastwood to make it easier...

 

Thanks, Sharkman and B77...surprising to me, but, I found doing the hog rings to be the easiest...and, the bottoms were relatively easy, but, as every one here said the backs are harder than the bottoms...I'll be glad when the last back is done and I'm working on easy stuff like putting my dash back together!

 

Those look very nice, indeed. Good job. It's great to see the results of your work, eh?

 

Not only did you do them your self you did them in the Kitchen!...You can have friends over and at the dinner table you can say .."Yup I recovered the seats in my Corvette all by my self!, and I did it right there!, (Point with your finger to the kitchen floor)"............LOL..Aint life grand!

 

Wow!!....turned out great. You've given me some inspiration...I'll be starting on mine probably next weekend.

 

Looks really nice!
Now give us some numbers...hours spent? Difficulty rating?
Should others (weekend warriors like me) attempt this?
Yours like good, even the right color, wanna sell 'em?

 

I am a weekend warrior also and I would say it is not too bad. I wasn't sure if I could do it either, but I just jumped in there and asked lots of questions. I think mine turned out pretty good too. Give it a shot. Take lots of pics and do a little reading on some of the webpages that have been posted that show some of the detail.

 

They look great. Wait till you get them installed in the car. Every time you get in the car you can admire your work. You will get great satisfaction knowing you did it yourself.

Chuck D

 

Thanks, Guys, for the compliment. Yes...It will feel good every time I get in the car and see my own handy work...by then my hands should have quit hurting!

"Now give us some numbers...hours spent? Difficulty rating?
Should others (weekend warriors like me) attempt this?
Yours like good, even the right color, wanna sell 'em?"

Should others attempt it?
I'm no mechanic, or reupholsterer...I work slow...but, cheap!
The cheapest price I could find for a shop to do mine was $400.oo for the pair...even after I took the old covers off and took the seats apart and repainted them, And had all the parts (covers, foam, etc.) they still wanted $300.00!!!!
Here's a scale of difficulty for each step...with 10 being the hardest:
1. Taking the old covers off and sanding the frames was probably 90 minutes a frame...any one can do this part...this is a 1 on the scale.
2. A friend welded the bottom back supports(that I bought from CA)...if you do your seats do this, the original frames are incredibly flimsy...also, if the seat bottom frame inner side wall is bent out, straighten it and weld in a piece of angle iron to strengthen it. Here's a before and after pic of both welds:

Any one can take the frames to get welded cheap...another 1 on the scale...
3. Putting the foam on the bottoms and recovering them took 2 hours for the first bottom and probably 40 minutes for the second bottom...this wasn't very hard...I actually did it by myself working slowly with a lot of breaks...this is probably a 3 on the scale...anyone can do it...
One piece of advice I got on this forum was to buy 2 installation kits...that's good advice...
4. Putting the foam and covers on the backs is hard...I needed someone else to help me...my wife! You just need another set of hands (and feet) to compress the foam...the first seat back took me about 3 hours to do...and, I almost gave up on it twice...but, once I figured it out, and got those little 3/8ths of an inch wire hooks through the foamit went pretty quick, so...this is a 6 or 7 on the scale...I explained in another thread how we did the seat backs...

If I could do this(with my wife's help, of course!), though...ANYone on this forum can...and I was damn proud when we got the first seat together!

No...I don't want to sell them, but, I happy you'd want to buy them!!!

 

They look great FJETB. I got my seats back together last night. As for the rest of the interior. The upper dash pad, left lower dash pad, header pad and A post pads are in. Next is the steering column. I need to hurry up and get done. Spring weather is just around the corner.

 

That seat looks great. This is one of my summer projects. I have some other stuff to get done first, but then the seats will go in at the same time that I do the carpet, and the F body Camaro seatbelts.

I bookmarked your thread for help when I get to this point.


kdf

 

???? how did this help? thks bob

 

I hear that they don't give you enough hog rings - but you can get more at any local upholstry or hardware shop...

I'll be trying this also whenever I get the chance - my seat covers and foam are in but seat frames have a bit of surface rust (I want to por-15 them). Also, how much did you guys pay to rechrome the side brackets - or did yours not need rechroming?

- Michael

 

ttt

 

looks awesome!

 

Thanks for the compliment, S- Country and D-back and KDF.

B77...I screwed up a lot of hogs rings and I ran out of the clips that go under the seat bottom...I know...I probably used too many, and I ran out of the right sized wires...didn't know why...course, I could have used the wrong ones in the wrong place...I didn't have any thing to go by from the seats I was re-building...the guy that did the seats before just used glue (I guess)...there were no wires or hooks, etc.
But, the second 'installation kit' I ordered was different from the first in terms of number of wires and size, and number of clips, etc.
So, I don't really know...I guess if you have an original to go by only one will do...i needed 2!
BTW...I finished the second seat in about an hour...so, I'm catching on!