Project Project My modest
1979 refresh
-
slow_and_ugly
- Short Shifter
- Posts: 55
- Joined: October 10th, 2016, 6:35 pm
- Province/State: Alberta
- Hometown: Edmonton
- Model: 1979 Hatchback
My modest project
The winter weather and an unheated garage has kept me from working on the door lock silencer, but it hasn't kept me idle. I have reupholstered my driver's seat.
The seat had typical cracks and splits in the vinyl.
The worst feature though, was that the seat sagged. I feared the foam was totally broken down but when I took the seat the seat apart I found that the foam was pretty much okay except for a split along the bottom where there was thin trough to allow a series of springs to pass through and hold down the seat bottom. The split allowed all the weight to press against a single cross spring which couldn't support it.
I reinforced the seam with a piece of leather I had left over from the steering wheel cover (never throw anything away!) and covered the bottom with a piece of canvas.
The canvas should help distribute the weight.
I considered many options for the seating material. In the end I wanted to keep the simple nature of the interior and decided to keep it black. I did a brief search for a replacement for the original vinyl weave but I remembered how much I detested it back in the day and opted for a black faux suede.
When the fabric arrived I found that I preferred the back side of cloth to the front. The back had a simple ribbed texture that reminded of the seats of my former 91 Si. SO I used the back. It made it a little more difficult as I them had to deal with the alignment of the ribbing, but it wasn't that big a deal.
I used the old pieces of the seat as guides to cut the new pieces. The outside piece of the seat back was too long so I had to cut it out in two pieces. The assembly was straight-forward. Just match up the edges and sew together. A bit of trial and error, but that's essentially it.
This is the result:
Not exactly perfect, but not a disaster either.
I reused all the foam and hardware. All the vinyl pieces except the back of the seat, the skirt at the bottom, and the piping have been replaced. I am encouraged enough to continue. The next task will be to do the passenger seat and the back seats to match although those seats are in very good condition.
The seat had typical cracks and splits in the vinyl.
The canvas should help distribute the weight.
I considered many options for the seating material. In the end I wanted to keep the simple nature of the interior and decided to keep it black. I did a brief search for a replacement for the original vinyl weave but I remembered how much I detested it back in the day and opted for a black faux suede.
When the fabric arrived I found that I preferred the back side of cloth to the front. The back had a simple ribbed texture that reminded of the seats of my former 91 Si. SO I used the back. It made it a little more difficult as I them had to deal with the alignment of the ribbing, but it wasn't that big a deal.
I used the old pieces of the seat as guides to cut the new pieces. The outside piece of the seat back was too long so I had to cut it out in two pieces. The assembly was straight-forward. Just match up the edges and sew together. A bit of trial and error, but that's essentially it.
This is the result:
I reused all the foam and hardware. All the vinyl pieces except the back of the seat, the skirt at the bottom, and the piping have been replaced. I am encouraged enough to continue. The next task will be to do the passenger seat and the back seats to match although those seats are in very good condition.
Gusto (August Boehm) of , was a member of this site owns and operates 1StGenCivic.Info,I do not endorse the site nor was I asked for permission to use or re-publish the information from here.
He scraped the web for past pages that are already included in the database of this site known as 1StGenCivic.com/org or previous generations and upgrades.
I am closing site down as an open discussion forum.
