I'm in the process of replacing the backpad upholstery with a kit from 914 rubber.

The first step to installation is stapling the inner seam under the padding. I hit a snag right away as my backpad is weak at the top of the area and the staples won't hold.

My original thought was to compress this area together and reinforce the back with fiberglass cloth and resin, but questioned weather the staples would go through the fiberglass.

I wanted to check with the braintrust here before proceeding. Any suggestions from someone who has encountered this problem?

Thanks!

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I had a couple spots like that on my backpad, but I wasn't recovering it. I used some fiberglass matting ( you could also use the cloth) and it fixed it up pretty good. Then I used Weldwood contact cement to reattach the vinyl on the back. That might work for you instead of staples. Be sure to let the contact cement set up on both sides for at least the 15 minutes, and when you press it in place it STAYS.

If it was me, I'd impregnate those cracks with yellow wood glue and then clamp with some wood strips using waxed paper or similar under the strips to keep them from gluing to the card.

Fiberglassed mine and it worked really well,some area's I brushed straight resin on where the cardboard had gone soft.
Any quality contact adhesive will stick to the fiberglass,the resin has wax in it so you may need to sand the surface where you are gluing,worked for me,
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I've fixed several non-staple areas with resin & cloth and I'm happy with the results.

Did you shoot any staples into the fiberglass? If so, how did it hold up? This is my concern with the fiberglass route.

Really the only way to do this is to use staples. the alternative is a metal strip and pop rivets. It should hold up, just non't spare the staples. I know many have done this in the past.

I used bondo to repair and fuse pieces together for a full part. Staples were tricky and I ended up using longer ones and bent them over staple by staple. Yrmv.

Thanks for all the input on this, much appreciated!

I mocked up a test piece to see how the fiberglass would react to staples. Then I went ahead and used the resin-cloth approach on the backside, liberally applying resin to the damaged area before laying any cloth. Everything worked out well. I ended up using 3/8" staples for this area.

I had to make new cardboard fabric hold-downs for the area that gets stapled. I found something pretty close at Michaels.

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