Backpad and Seat Re-Upholstery, From Autos International Kits Options

[nick mironov]

This shows how to re-upholster late model backpad and seats using pre-made kits.
This thread should nicely complement the excellent How to Restore Headrest, Tutorial with Pictures thread in the classics forum.

My kits came from Autos International - ask for Auggie. Nice guy, very helpful, did extra research for me, sent samples, and used custom fabric and perforation.

I also found kits at World Upholstry, but they did not want to deal with other than vinyl or leather fabric, and I wanterd the perforated suede. I think that there are other upholstery kits available as well.

Basic costs are about $200 a seat and $200 for the backpad. Mine were a little more because of the perforated "suede" material from Miami Corp that I elected to use.

At first I thought that I would try to sew the upholstery myself, using the existing pieces as templates. I finally decided against it and I am very glad that I did not attempt to sew.

The only problem that I had was that the seat headrest fabric fit too loosely. Autos International would have fixed it, but I took care of it myself by re-stitching some of the seams. I am sure that they would have done it better than I did, but I did not want to send them the headrests and wait to get them back. If you choose Autos International, I recommend that you send them your headrests for proper fitting.

After shooting a number of pictures, I found that my camera was starting to act up and finally failed. Many of the pictures were unfortunately not salvageable, so I only chose the best ones, and the presentation is not as detailed as I had hoped it would be.

Mt 914 is a V8 conversion with 16" 4-lug Superlight wheels.

Carpet kits are by Morph.

Make sure that you have a good staple gun and get 2 large cans of spray-on adhesive (I used 3M Super 77) and two tubes of rubber cement (I used Barge Cement)

Very important: Remove the fabric from only one piece or seat at a time, leaving the other intact for you to reference the details during the re-assembly process.

Finished Interior:

[nick mironov]

This is where the camera failed, so I did not get useful pictures of the process of stretching the fabric over the backboard.

Start by stretching the fabric over the foam padding and stapling the back. This can be hard work on your fingers - really pull on the material. Then spray the entire backboard and back of the fabric with the spray-on contact adhesive. Let it dry - very important. Go do something else while it dries. If you do not let it dry, the two parts will not stick to each other and you will have serious problems. Don't rush the drying process - very, very important.

When the spray-on adhesive is dry, stretch the fabric over the front of the backboard, careully filling in the nooks and crannys with fabric using your fingers to push it in place - it will stick. The adhesive is fairly forgiving, so you can still pull it up and redo somthing if you make a mistake.

After you are done with the front, turn the backboard over and trim the ends (look at the original installation to see the techniques used for both inside and outside corners. Apply spray adhesive to both the backboard and the material, let dry, and then stretch around.