Remember the driver seat issue that arose some time ago, as cited in an earlier post (http://944folly.com/2013/11/as-time-goes-by/)?
Deciding now to do something about it, I sought out Lanny, a car guy/hot-rodder/car customizer, who goes way back. He specializes in custom interiors and restorations, although he considers this his retirement. We’ll learn more about Lanny in a bit. Here’s what we did:
1. The first step was to remove the seat, starting from the front. It is secured by six 5mm allen bolts, two in the front of the seat rails and four at the rear of the rails.
2. Next, we had to disconnect the wiring assembly for the power controls. This worked best by first removing the plate under the plug-in assembly.
3. Not only did removal of the seat expose the cruddy condition of the carpet underneath, but we tapped into a mother lode of various coins, amounting to nearly one dollar.
4. Now the seat goes to the work bench.
5. Lanny starts disassembling the seat.
6. The seat bottom is put aside, awaiting later reassembly.
7. Lanny removes the fabric covering the seat’s foam core.
8. The foam core seat back in its naked state.
9. The fabric covering the inner seat back is removed.
10. The bottom of the side panel fabric is pulled out to inspect the damage and see the excess fabric that had been tucked inside.
11. Lanny checks to see if he can match the color and type of material. As it turns out, there was enough “hidden” excess fabric that could be spliced in to replace the damaged area.
12. Grafting a section of excess fabric onto the side panel and adding new piping or beading, and all is ready for reassembly and re-installation of the seat.
13. The final result is a subtle seam but, of course, a perfect match in color and texture.
In our next post, we will get to know Lanny a bit better, now that we know the magic he can do.