Upholstery disassembly??

[biggyfries]

I have a 94 Culass Convert with ultra low miles, its loaded with the 3.4 engine, and it is a jewel, but it was driven by the previous owner's 16yo son, and he allowed a lot of things to go haywire, --I have been addressing the flaws one at a time and the next item on my list is to fix the driver's seat cover. It is showing very little wear on the usual spots on the edges of the bolsters of the seat, but oddly the small horizontal seam at the top of the seat-back has come unstitched. What I'd like to do is separate the seat back from the seat cushion. I presume the hinge can be taken apart or separated in some way. Once I have the seat halves separated I want to remove the leather seatback uphostery, turn it inside out and re-stitch the seam by hand (many years ago I was a leather worker hobbyist and made many nice items by stitching by hand) So who can tell me how to take the seat apart to that point so I can work on the seat back itself? Can I remove it from the seat cushion by simply prying the hinge apart, leaving the lower cushion bolted in place?

I would go out and try to figure it out myself but its raining and the car is in a garage elsewhere. I hope someone has taken the upholstery apart and knows how to do this job. Any advice will be appreciated.

[95 vert]

Upper cover can be removed without taking the seat apart or out of the vehicle. Headrest comes out with a swift "pull" upwards.

The cover has a plastic strip at the bottom holding it together. Holding both sides of the cover, pull down and outwards on the

plastic seam to separate it. You can use a screwdriver at one end to get this started.

The cover is velcroed at the front side. Put your hand under the cover and carefully "pry" the velcro apart, separating the cover

from the foam pad. There will be two vertical strips just inside the bolster and a horizontal strip approx in the center. Once these

are loose, the cover can be worked up off the foam. The folding seat knob is a pain to get off. It will need to be pried off the lever

or, in some cases, the cover can be worked around it also.

 

Not a great explanation, I know, but it really is pretty simple to do. Hope this helps.

[pshojo]

How do you get head rests out?

[Galaxie500XL]

I had a similar problem with the passenger's seat on my Cutlass. Once I had the seat cover removed, I took the cover to a shoe repair place. They had the right equipment, and made a nice tight seam. They charged me $6.00.

 

 

I have a 94 Culass Convert with ultra low miles, its loaded with the 3.4 engine, and it is a jewel, but it was driven by the previous owner's 16yo son, and he allowed a lot of things to go haywire, --I have been addressing the flaws one at a time and the next item on my list is to fix the driver's seat cover. It is showing very little wear on the usual spots on the edges of the bolsters of the seat, but oddly the small horizontal seam at the top of the seat-back has come unstitched. What I'd like to do is separate the seat back from the seat cushion. I presume the hinge can be taken apart or separated in some way. Once I have the seat halves separated I want to remove the leather seatback uphostery, turn it inside out and re-stitch the seam by hand (many years ago I was a leather worker hobbyist and made many nice items by stitching by hand) So who can tell me how to take the seat apart to that point so I can work on the seat back itself? Can I remove it from the seat cushion by simply prying the hinge apart, leaving the lower cushion bolted in place?

I would go out and try to figure it out myself but its raining and the car is in a garage elsewhere. I hope someone has taken the upholstery apart and knows how to do this job. Any advice will be appreciated.

[Galaxie500XL]

There's a plastic piece that holds the seams together at the base of the seat back, just get in the back seat, and fold the seat forward, and you should be able to press that apart. There's some Velcro that holds the upholstery close to the foam in the front, easiest to just put your hand up inside the seat, and separate it with your fingers. Work the upholstery from the bottom, basically turning it inside out as you go up the seat back.

[95 vert]

How do you get head rests out?

 

"Swift" pull upwards

[Crazy K]

DO NOT PULL UPWARDS SWIFTLY!!!! THIS BREAKS THE MECHANISM THAT RESTRAINTS THE HEADREST. My 93 vert was #$&*ed up in the seat rest and the seatrest actually lifted out and ejected from the vehicle at speed. BAD BAD BAD CHOICE.

 

92-97 CS SEATS: upper upholstery and headrest.

TO REMOVE:

tilt seat forward(if applicable, sedans excluded, but if you don't mind standing on your head... or you have the seat out)

find seam at base of rear

undo seam.

use small knife to lengthen the slit for the tilt mechanism on coupe seats, making the slit longer by cutting downward until it pops over the peg.

gently work and pull the upholstery loose from the underlying cushion, taking care to separate the Velcro from the upholstery without damaging the foam.

gently work the upholstery up over the top of the seat. your goal it to make it look like a veterinarians collar over the seat top.

with the upholstery up, you should be able to lift the foam up, and see the two plastic pegs that hold the headrest in place. use a small flat head screw driver to break through the tape on those, pry the metal spring pressure rings down for a moment and from the side tweak the plastic finger until the head rest moves up.

You should now have everything apart.

make sure you return the spring metal ring on the headrest mechanism to it's proper groove, and recover the item with some electric tape or whatever.

 

PRO TIP: CS (and others) Upholstery on bucket fronts is identical left to right except for the holes. The foam is also this way as well. On several seat sets I have actually switched the upholstery and foam between drivers and passenger seats to keep the best upholstery side to the outside, coupled with curing Fat Ass Syndrome with a piece of carpet cut to completely fit between the foam and the seat springs.

 

On the bench back style seats I actually used strips of aluminum on the straight type post to press down into the mechanism to perform the release, but on those seats the mechanism is imbedded into the foam

[95 vert]

Crazy K I've pulled 50+ headrests out of these seats without any issue. Not sure what you mean here

[George]

I have pushed zip ties/ nylon wire ties down the back of the headrest posts to release the plastic retaining tabs with good results.

[Crazy K]

Crazy K I've pulled 50+ headrests out of these seats without any issue. Not sure what you mean here

 

Removing them is not the issue, it's have them properly restrained once you try to reinsert them. The friction from the plastic mechanism is what holds the seat rests in the vehicle, as well as allows them to sit at personal comfort adjustment height. I'm 6 foot, and my headrest feels most comfortable when at the top of it's travel range. When the headrest has been forcibly removed, the mechanism breaks and the headrests no longer will stay when positioned. Also, again, they can fall out, as happened in my vert, to be lost to wind and winding roads. They don't break every time, but often enough you should not use your technique. sorry!

 

 

George, the aluminum strip I used was made from a beverage can, but whatever can work works. In my case I was removing the headrest wihtout pulling the upholstery. It did take about ten tries, but I was also going down though the finish ring on the upholstery which would likely be too narrow for a zip tie, at least on that seat set.

Edited October 17, 2014 by Crazy K

[jake91]

I forcibly removed my Cutty headrests a few times. they always clicked back in fine, and didn't want to come back out without persuasion.

[George]

I found a spare headrest and the notches are on the frontside of the headrest not the back.

My bad.

 

This is how I did it as well.

[Mark 1997 Cutlass Coupe]

Can the entire seat back be removed, with the upholstery still attached, and swapped as a unit? My driver side upper seat back is worn on the left corner (like they all do) and I've located a perfect passenger seat. How does the upper seat come apart from the lower seat frame? The only downside to this I can see is that the seat back release will be in the wrong place, but who cares. By the way, I'm talking about a 97 Cutlass Coupe with factory charcoal leather seats.

[Mark 1997 Cutlass Coupe]

Another thought, can a passenger seat be swapped as a unit to the driver side just by replacing the seat tracks? my passenger side is manual (I think they all are) and my car has 6 way power on the driver side. If it is a simple matter of a seat track swap I think that would be the easiest, if it is possible.

[Psych0matt]

The seat skin swap has been done before, doesn't sound hard. I swear someone just did it in the last few weeks, but I can't find it

Edited April 22, 2015 by Psych0matt

[George]

It may work. I have not tried to swap entire seats, but I would suspect no due to the recline levers being on the outsides and the power seat controls on the outside of the drivers seat.

I've found that the seat back covers are interchangeable except for the hole on the back of the seat for the tip up lever, however, for $25 I had a local upholstery shop put a drivers side inside panel (next to the center console) on the outside of a passenger seat back cover so there were no holes on the back. I put the cover on the drivers seat, poked a hole in the right place and it looks like new.

The seat bottom covers are not interchangeable due to the inside bolster (next to the center console) being narrower than the outside bolster and again the the material being trimmed for the outside controls.

Just my two cents.

I am going to try to attach a passenger side seat bottom center piece to the sides of a drivers side seat bottom as a repair for a wear hole in my drivers side seat bottom center piece.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Nas Escobar]

Another thought, can a passenger seat be swapped as a unit to the driver side just by replacing the seat tracks? my passenger side is manual (I think they all are) and my car has 6 way power on the driver side. If it is a simple matter of a seat track swap I think that would be the easiest, if it is possible.

 

You can swap over the bucket, if that's what you're wondering (and yes all Cutlass Supremes were driver's power only. Real weird set up but eh.)

 

I believe Galaxy500 has done it. He would be the one to talk to about it

[Mark 1997 Cutlass Coupe]

When I go to the junkyard on Friday, if the seat is still there, I may just swap the 2 front seats left to right just to see. I'll be curious about George's thought that the bottom is slightly different. I think the easiest would be swapping the seat tracks, if it works. My fear is that removing the seat cover on a 20 year old seat may stretch or mark the leather. I removed the leather seat bottom last year on another car to fix the seat frame, and it caused a few extra wrinkles in an otherwise perfect seat. Thanks everyone for your thoughts and ideas.

[Nas Escobar]

When I go to the junkyard on Friday, if the seat is still there, I may just swap the 2 front seats left to right just to see. I'll be curious about George's thought that the bottom is slightly different. I think the easiest would be swapping the seat tracks, if it works. My fear is that removing the seat cover on a 20 year old seat may stretch or mark the leather. I removed the leather seat bottom last year on another car to fix the seat frame, and it caused a few extra wrinkles in an otherwise perfect seat. Thanks everyone for your thoughts and ideas.

 

Yeah,that would be the biggest issue, the controls. You would have to swap the controls onto the other side, but the actual recliner would be on the right side since you're taking off the seat off the bracket and putting it on the driver's side. You could however extend the wire to the other side and dremel a hole for the switches and mount them on the "right" side.

 

Food for thought.

[Mark 97 Cutlass Coupe]

I went to the junkyard today, and here is what I found. I took the passenger seat out of the car ( 4 8mm bolts, as mentioned before), which makes everything much easier. Then, remove the entire back of the seat from the bottom. There are 3 13mm bolts on the side with the recliner, and one 13mm bolt on the other side. It takes a little prying to get the side opposite of the recliner out. Once the two pieces are apart,it is very easy to remove the bottom seat cover. There are two white plastic strips that hold the leather to the frame, and two side bars as well. When you carefully remove these items, the seat bottom, along with the foam pad, will lift right off. I also took the driver seat apart (couldn't get it out of the car since it was power, and I couldn't get to the bolts) and the seat frame and foam pad are identical to the passenger side. I laid the passenger seat frame (not the seat tracks, the actual frame the upholstery attaches to) on top of the driver side power tracks, and the bolts line up perfectly. It has to be same part. The seat backs will not directly interchange because of the way the seat back bolts to the seat bottom. But, it is very easy to undo and transfer the upper seat cover. Just pull apart the white plastic strips that hold the leather together on the bottom of the seat. Also take the rear seat access lever off. Reach inside the seat, and separate the cover from the foam, which is attached by velcro. You'l hear and feel the velcro as it comes apart, and then just genty pull the cover over the seat frame. I suggest you first try this on a junk yard car like I did so you don't accidently damage your good seat. Once you get the first seat apart it really is very easy. I would recommend cleaning and treating the leather prior to removing the seat back from the frame so that the leather is as supple as possible. Remember these seats are 18-23 years old, so they will be a little dirty and brittle. I cleaned and conditioned mine tonight with Lexol, and the difference is amazing after only one cleaning and conditioning.

Edited April 27, 2015 by Mark 97 Cutlass Coupe

[Nas Escobar]

A drill battery to the seat motor's pigtail (The 2 that clip to the body harness) moves the seat where ever you want. That's how I got the Monte Carlo seats out that I'll be retrofitting to my Cutlass.

[Crazy K]

I have swapped driver and passenger seat skins. They are the same, but the underlying frame and mechanisms are mirrored. You do have to remove them from the frame. This applies to 92-97 CS seats, others may vary.

 

I swapped the base model seat skins with each other in a 93 GP (I put the worn areas on the inner side, making them look new from the outside of the car), but the deluxe seats in 94-96 GP I was unable to disassemble the top section from the upper frame