Hi to all,I was wondering if anyone can tell me how difficult it is to install new leather covers that already have new foam,do they just snap in?I have not had my original seats apart yet.Thanks for any help.

 

They pretty much just snap in. I pulled mine and recovered them with new leather covers from Al Knoch and it wasn't that bad of a job. If you don't have sport seats with the bladders you won't have any hoses to disconnect. Just reach under the front edge of the lower cushion and you will feel a wire clip, push down on the cushion at the front edge and the clip will unsnap and the cushion will come off. The top one is released by pushing in on the outside edge of the cushion about 10 to 12" from the top and releasing the clip wire. Once the outside edge is released you can reach behind the cushion and release the other side and it will pull out from the top.

DS

 

Thanks sounds easy,do I need to reuse anything from the old covers and foam?

 

Do you have Sport Seats or standard seats? I encountered serious problems trying to install reproduction covers on foam for Sport Seats. I even took the seats to Bloomington Gold last year where the vendor was set up and let his installers try. That's when I learned the secret about repro covers on foam for 94-96 Sport Seats.

Greg

 

Has anyone used Ebay leather seat covers?

 

They are standard with foam already mounted from Corvette America,will I need to salvage anything from the old stuff.

 

I made a photo doc of my 86's seat replacement. You can see it here:

seat replacement photo doc

 

greetings,
i have an 88 with sport seats and i hear it is a bear to do 'em. something about the orig seat leather being hog-ringed to the seats themselves. i can see how to release the seat bottom with the clip/wire thatya pull out but, the rest i am not willing to try for fear that i will not be able to get it back together again. i needed to remove 'em to replace the bladders in the seat.

 

The answer is no. I bought my standard black leather covers on foam from Al Knoch too. I twatched the salesman at Carlisle demonstrate how to remove the foam from the backing. It looked easy. I went over to my car with my long handle screw driver and tried it. I wasn't able to get the right angle behind the foam to disengage the wire hanger away from the retainer. After 30 minutes, and afraid I would mess it up permantly, I walked back over to Knoc booth. I gave the installer $25 and he did both seats in about 15 mins. The trick was, that he had a special long slightly curved flat head screw driver. In the center of the blade of the screw driver was 1/8 inch notch. This is what allowed him to catch the wire bar behind the foam and push it out of the way. The new foams had to be cleaned/scraped around where the wire bar engages with the seat back retainer. It looked like if you used to much force, you would break the retainer or crack it out of the plastic seatback. When I looked at used seats for sale I saw many of them missing retainers. (A clue). Good luck

 

Greg, what's the secret? I just ordered my 95 Sport seat, I have the seats out of the car and the bottom seat part removed but I have to remove the back now and was wondering if you would have any tips?

Thanks

 

Take a look at square's post, it can be a little tricky and you will benefit if you have a "special tool". I took a screwdriver and used my grinder to notch a "v" into the tip of the screwdriver. Using my "seat installing tool" I finished the job in minutes.

 

The reproduction leather covers on foam for 94 to 96 Sport Seats are all made by the same well known company regardless of which of the three or four big name Corvette parts supply houses you order from. I bought Sport Seat leather covers on foam for my 96 in April of last year directly from the manufacturer. The seat cushions were fine, the problem was the backs didn't fit due to the way the foam was molded. The original seatback foam has channels and slots molded in the right places which accept the main hoop of the seat back frame, various crossbars and the lateral wings allowing them to nest in place. The main hoop, bars and parts of the seat frame actually "plug" into these molded in channels causing everything to fit together precisely giving the seat its proper shape and form. In the reproduction Sport Seats something was wrong with the design of the mold; the foam was molded differently and the channels are not in the right places for the main hoop and the lateral wings. The channels for the main hoop are out of place and no matter how much you try you cannot get the foam to nest or plug into the main hoop. The best you can do is just allow the foam to ride on top of the frame without plugging into it. The slots for the lateral wings are too high which means you have to pull and force them to go in anyway into slots that are in the wrong place. I thought at first it was because I didn't know what I was doing so I called the manufacturer for advise and he offered to take a look at them. Since I had planned to go to the upcoming Bloomington Gold show anyway he agreed to look at them there; two months later I took them with me up to the show. His installers struggled with them just like I did so I asked if there was a problem. The installer pointed to a channel not being in the right place and his suggestion was to just live with it; he said they had sold a lot of them and not had any other complaints. He sprayed glue in there and pulled the zipper down to show you can actually get them on which is what other customers must be doing; they just give up and live with it I guess or they don't know. I wanted no part of a jury-rig like that so I asked the manager if I could just return them and he said he would take them back. Mid America had a huge display with all their seats up there and also had their upholstery expert present. I asked about 96 Sport Seats thinking I could just get another set from them and try again. She advised me their seats actually came from that same manufacturer and she knew about the problem; she said all the 94-96 Sport Seats they make have that problem. She said the late C4 Sport Seats were carefully engineered by a big company with a lot of resources and that it would be a very challenging job for a small company with limited resources to duplicate their original efforts. She advised me to not buy any more 94-96 Sport Seats for now. It's a shame too because just looking at the repros out of the box they look pretty good, just like the originals. If only they fit like the originals!! I have decided to be on the lookout for good used low mileage seats for mine so I scan the ads and look in the fleamarket areas at big shows and will continue again this year and maybe some good ones will show up.

Regards, Greg

 

Thanks Greg, I wish I would have known about this earlier, I just bought mine on Thursday.

Sounds like I should leave the car the way it is and just drive it, I bought new carpet just because there was a little wear on the corner of the foot rest pad on the left hand side and the repro are junk, the foot rest pad is twice the size and too large for the area putting the molded bend in the wrong place and they all have a heel pad where the original did not, the heel pad is in the floor mat not carpet but the repro has one and look terrible, it looked better with that little worn spot then that crap and you can't buy only the driver floor section, you have to buy the whole set and throw it away. I think I'm too picky to own a north american car and should live with it the way it is, $70k in 95 and that's what you get, 24k miles later needing carpet and leather seats, I was reading on the C6 Forum about new cars 6-10 months old with holes in the seat bolster.

 

To those of you waiting for my inputs on the replacement Foam and Leather for the 94-95 Sport Seats, I received them yesterday and the color is perfect, the leather looks good and the key question was do they fit, there was a rumor going around that those seats didn't fit, the foam mold was not correct bla-bla-bla!!! Turns out they fit 100% perfect and are a piece of cake to remove and install as you know the leather is glued to the foam on the 95, so you don't have a choice, you have to replace the whole thing but it only makes life easier.

I got them from Al Knoch Interiors and have a ZR1 Logo instead of the original C4 Logo, my seats were still in good shape but I decided to replace them before they start to get old and worn out and I'll keep the originals for the next owner who will want a perfect survivor like they all do when buying.



The fit is perfect, the color is perfect but there is one little difference that most people will not notice and it's at the seams, the originals have one stitched line on both side of all seams, the new ones have the stitched line only on the sides portion of the seats, the front portion doesn't have that stitched line, I have pictures of the old and new covers side by side if you'd like to see the little difference.

To me that detail is not important because I don't have the OEM logo anyway but to those of you who want 100% original, you might want to use my photo when ready to order and ask if they can do them like the original, I'm sure they can, they might have forgot on mine who knows but I don't really care, I was a lot more concerned about fitment.

 

Greg
I have a 96 with standard seats that need new covers, is it a must to replace the foam or should I purchase the covers that are on the foam? And does my seats have the Hog rings as I have not removed the seats yet? I was looking at the cheaper covers (vinyl) thinking they would last longer as I am tall and I drive my Vette every day.
Thanks

 

Louis, they are on foam too but cost $100 less.
http://www.alknochinteriors.com/94-96STDbig.htm
My sport seat had only 7 hog rings but I used only 2 cable ties instead and it worked, there was 2 hog rings on each side at the bottom but all they were holding was a small piece of foam to a steel rod and the foam was ripped, so basically they were not holding anything and that piece of foam was in contact with that rod anyway.
Then there was the 3 in the middle of the back seat cushions, those ones are helpful as there is a rod inside the foam that you need to attach to the seat frame and that's the one where I used cable ties, it will work just as good.
The seats are mostly vinyl the only leather is the surface that contacts our body, the sides and back is all vinyl and I find only the leather seems to wear out fast, so if you don't care about originality, I'd go with vinyl.

 

Thank you for the web site, I am going to check them out now
Your Vette looks like mine except we have different wheels and mine is a LT4.

 

I din't read all the details of the previous posts but what I've learned from removing and installing the standard seat cushions is that the upper half of the seat back is a real pain to install especially if using new seat cushions that come with new foam already assembled. I actually need the help of an assistant to roll the edge of the cushion back to expose the wire that attaches to the clip. I used a large long screwdriver to push down and engage it into the clip. I didn't notch my screwdriver because I didn't want to ruin it, but it was the largest screwdriver I had, it's about 14" long and stout. Just make sure both the other clips on the on the inboard side of the backseat cushion at the top and bottom is engaged first. The lower clip is a little easier but still requires some assistance to pull back the cushion to see the wire and to push the cushion into the seat back shell at the same time. It's a 3 handed job.

Art

 

 

Thanks Art

At least I know what I am getting into if I do the install or buy the new mounted foam and covers and have a shop install it or send the seats out have them do it. Thanks to Art and Greg for the information.

Regards
Louis