The vinyl in my Duster was getting pretty bad, so I saved up for a while and decided to get some new original type seat covers. They're expensive, so I waited until Legendary had one of their 20% off deals and bought them. I really didn't want to pay $500+ for a local upholstery shop to install them, so I decided to do them myself. It was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be. This isn't really a how to lesson but I'll throw in some things I learned while doing it.

If you want to do it, I suggest first going to Legendary's website and watching their how to videos. They wont tell you everything, but it'll give you enough to get through the whole thing with some common sense. Get yourself a pair of the angled hog ring pliers. I had an old pair of straight pliers and hog ringing the sides of the front bench seat was torture. There's just no room to get them in there. After wasting 20 or so rings, I eventually got them on there. Your local upholstery shop should sell hog rings at 100 per dollar. The ones at Home Depot or any other home improvement store are much bigger than the upholstery type. Also you'll want to head on down to the fabric store and get about half a yard of felt. It will be for wrapping the sharper metal portions of the seat frames so they don't eventually poke through the vinyl. High density foam is expensive, so reuse your old foam if at all possible. The cotton foam they use on the seat backs is different than the bottoms, so I would order that through Legendary if I needed it. Luckily my foam was in good enough shape to reuse.



Old back seat bottom.



Underneath.



I just took the old hog rings off and placed the new seat cover in the exact same spot (turn the cover inside out). You can see where the vinyl cords have sort of indented the foam. Just lay the new cords in the same indents and then fold down the outsides to wrap around the seat. Pull things tight with your hands and make sure you are happy with where it is sitting. Start your first hog ring in the middle of the back of the seat and equally work your way out. I did the back side and then the front side. Then I really tightened down the sides of the seat to get the wrinkles out of the top. As you can see it's not perfect but it's good enough with old foam. I made sure the wrinkles I left would be either hidden on the sides or at the very back of the seat where the top will cover them. In a perfect world I would have bought new foam because this was the most worn of the foam in the car. I just didn't have the $150 or so to spend on high density foam.



Then I did the top of the back seat. As you can see, the top of it was tore up big time. Most of the foam was there but some of the top layer had blown away with the windows rolled down. I bought some cheap cotton batting from wal mart and cut it to size and placed it up there to "fill" out the missing layer.



If you don't have a helper, a large C clamp works for compressing the seat springs so you can get the vinyl pulled tight enough. Again, start at the back in the middle and hog ring out. Then the front. Then the sides. Flip the seat over multiple times as you go to make sure you are getting the wrinkles out. They will start flatening out as you apply more hog rings. If you aren't happy with the way the cover is positioned after you've gone a couple sides, cut the hog rings off and reposition the seat and do it again. It's better to take the 20 minutes to fix it, than to get it in the car and have to pull it out and restart the whole process over.



This one came out real nice. Remember there are wires in the vinyl called "listing wires". They are used to hog ring around so you don't tear the vinyl over time. Check your old covers for the wires and remove them and give them a good cleaning so you can reuse them. If you can't reuse them, some medium gauged bailing wire should work just fine.



The front seat was recovered about 12 years ago with regular custom vinyl. These are the backs.



The hardware and trim had me nervous because you only get one chance to cut for it.



This was my least favorite of the covers I did. I could not for the life of me get those wrinkles out no matter what. The flash from the camera makes them look about 5x worse than they do in person though. The other back rest turned out perfect. These back rests are the easiest covers to do. Watch the Legendary video and they show you to turn the cover halfway inside out. Then press the cover on to the seat as tight as it'll go and slowly roll/slide it down until it's tight. Just keep an eye so the cover doesn't try and "twist" itself on the frame and get crooked. Roll it down evenly to avoid this. Then use your armpit to compress the seat springs and start hog ringing from the inside out.



Give the chrome latch a good cleaning. The little knob on the handle is removed with a small allen wrench. Be careful because it's tough to tell if you have the right size. You really have to jiggle it in there to make sure you're in the screw. Cut a tiny x over the latch handle as it's poking at the vinyl once you get the seat on. Then fit the chrome trim around it and you can feel it sink into place. Get your screws in and then make a little slice down the center of the trim so the handle can move up and down freely.



Same deal with the head rest trim. Once you get the cover on, feel for the holes in the top and cut a little hole in them with a razor. Then make the hole slightly bigger and bigger until it's big enough for the head rest. Remember you can always go bigger but if you cut too much then you're SOL. After that, the trim pieces will kind of pop into place and the screw holes will be lined up. Just make sure you get them right side up.



The front bottom seat is the toughest to do. You'll most likely need a helper for this one.



There are seat belt holes that will have to be cut out later. They are fairly nerve racking to do because they aren't as cut and try as the trim on the back rests. Just measure where the holes are at and take your time when putting the cover on. Make sure you have room in between the seat springs to install them before cutting. Feel through the vinyl to make sure you know where you're at.



Bottom turned out much better than expected.



See near the back of the seat where it looks like the vinyl is pulled down tightly before going over the back hump? Before you put the cover on, you'll see where it has an extra layer underneath where you're supposed to place a listing wire. With the seat turned over, have a helper pull up on the listing wire with pliers so you can hog ring it to the springs. Start in the middle and work your way out with the hog rings and it'll be real tight. Then start at the back and work your way out and then go to the front and work your way out. At this point you will still have some wrinkles in the seat but they should go away when you tighten down the sides. This is where those angled hog ring pliers come in handy. Use pliers or have a partner use them to pull the vinyl up because the hooks that you hog ring to are further into the seat frame than the front or back sides. After that, cut little x's over the posts sticking out the sides and push them through. Then clean up the holes so they look nice. After that cut out your seat belt holes as explained above and you're done.





Not too bad for a first timer who's never messed with covers before. I'll put the back seat in once I get the interior trim painted. It's just tough finding B7 blue paint. Seems like no one carries anything that matches it. I had to install the front seat because it's my daily driver and I need to get back on the road.

All I can say is get a good clean work table to do everything on. Take your time and flip the seats over and check your work constantly as you go. There are no awards for being the fastest installer, so you want to take your time to make sure you are happy with your work. I'm sure the pro's could get out a few of the wrinkles I couldn't get out but they don't bother me when I think about how much money I saved. If you can't help but get wrinkles, then hog ring the vinyl in a pattern to where you end up with wrinkles in a spot that'll be covered. Like the front botton seat, there are wrinkles but they are underneath where the back rests are going to sit. Once installed, they are basically invisible.

That's really nice work -- kudos! The only quibble I would raise is that if you can possibly afford it, you should use new foam as a matter of principle. It will be sagged out by the time the seat is due for new upholstery, and your back (and backside) will thank you for having done the complete job every time you sit in the car.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Nice work! Congratulations ESP47. Believe it or not, your work is of a higher caliber than a lot of pros pawn off on the old car crowd. I have seen some real re-upholstery messes at car shows folks have wasted a lot of dough on.

I second Dan on using new foundation materials including burlap and muslin if factory used these fabrics; also it is a good idea to clean and repaint springs, frame, seat back hinges, and tracks for anyone considering performing this repair.

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67' Dart GT Convertible; the old Chrysler Corp.
82' LeBaron Convertible; the new Chrysler Corp
07' 300 C AWD; Now by Fiat, the old new Chrysler LLC

The other thing about old foam: it sheds; you'll be sneezing and snorking and forever vacuuming up yellow dust if you don't put in new foam.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Thanks guys, I agree about the foam. Even though I've been daily driving it for 10 years now, my car is a lower mileage California car that is cleaner than the average Mopar you'll find. Since the front seat had been reupholstered before, I didn't mind using the foam because it was in great shape and the burlap had already been replaced with a different type of material that didn't look like it would break down for another 100 years. I should have put foam in the rear seat but I didn't. Someone might ride in my back seat once or twice a month, so it's no big deal here.

I'm not a very good mechanic and I'm not very artsy when it comes to stuff like this, so I just wanted to show that anyone could do this kind of job with a little patience and a 3 day weekend

Looks good. I've installed kits before. The work goes well when the springs are in good shape.

I will do the seats in my '47 Dodge WC truck. Mine is simple vinyl with no pattern, makes any modern seat look fancy. A neighbor has an industrial sewing machine that I can borrow. It'll do 4 stitches per inch. I have a sewing machine that can handle heavy cloth. I'll make a cloth slip cover as the vinyl is too hot for me in the summer. For as simple as this seat is, it could be hand stitched, which I've done before to patch up worn seats. I will do the door panels too, with aren't stitched at all. The seat in the WC isn't OEM, it actually has a wood frame, almost like a small couch with no arms. There are some Spanish-only local shops that work very cheaply, but I can't speak the language.

One tip I learned doing vintage VW interiors: a heat gun or good hair dryer can help remove those wrinkles in vinyl.

Warm the area lightly as you work it into place, and tug the wrinkles out gently when warm. As it cools it will tighten into place.

If possible, leave the covers in direct sun for 15 - 20 minutes before you start to install to warm them all over.

Obviously, don't let them get too hot or pull too hard when warm or they can discolor or tear.

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'66 Barracuda

Doing upholstery work is no different than changing sheets on a bed, jmho!

Yeah I had them out in the 95* sun for a couple hours before installing. Made it very easy. Those wrinkles you see in the last pic or two were completely gone after the car sat in the sun while I was at work the next day. Now what's happened is the vinyl under my butt has kinda stretched a bit since I've been driving it. When I originally put the cover on, I had the sides pulled as tight as they could possibly be pulled. I'm still doing some work to the interior so I think I'm going to take the seat back out and restretch it and hog ring it back down.

One of my friends who does interiors as a part time deal always blasts the frames springs and tracks, the sprays them with POR-15. They always look better than they did when new and no future rusting problem. POR-15 is very scatch/wear resistant... Just passing on a "tip" to mull over...

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MRO....

Cheap, Fast, Reliable.... Pick 2...

This is why one has to rebuild or replace old dead non rebounding foam and other foundation components such as weak springs.

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67' Dart GT Convertible; the old Chrysler Corp.
82' LeBaron Convertible; the new Chrysler Corp
07' 300 C AWD; Now by Fiat, the old new Chrysler LLC

Good job!Last one I did it took 3 weeks for my fingers to heal from the hog rings.

The front seat had been redone a few years ago. The shop replaced foam, springs and painted it all up. Still looked brand new underneath. I think the problem was the vinyl cover that went on it had a 1/2" of foam that was attached to the vinyl as part of the seat cover. Basically I lost a little bit of foam when I tossed that seat cover. No biggie anyway. I'm repainting the interior trim and pulling out the gauge cluster, so I'll just pull the seat and fix it while I make room to work in the rest of the car.