Preserving and Repairing Front Seats

[Marcdeb]

I spent the last month working on the seats from my 68 Karmann Ghia convertible. My goal is to keep it as original as possible and to maintain and preserve this 23,000 mile time capsule.

When I made the deal to purchased the car, the front seats needed stitching where the basketweave centers come together with the smooth sides, but otherwise, they were in excellent condition. This is a photo from the selling dealer taken just a few days prior to my buying the car.

However when I received the car, both seats had both been repaired with some sort of vinyl repair patching. The job they did had already started opening up when the car arrived:

And after a few months use, the drivers seat now looked like this:

Not only did it ruin the appearance of both seats, but this severely complicated what would have been such an easy repair had they just left it alone. Prior to the botched repair, the vinyl material was not damaged in any way other than needing stitching. Here's a close up of the attempted repair. The vinyl on the inboard side of both seats has been covered with some sort of vinyl goop or paint. Now the texture and the imitation grain in the vinyl is totally covered over.

Since the seats can be brought inside where it's warm, it will make a good winter project. I really wanted to get these fixed up before summer arrives and as usual, it ended up turning into a much longer project than planned.

I have a 71 Ghia convertible with correct seat covers, but the frames are from a later 72-74 Ghia so it was interesting to see all the changes between the seat frames. First thing to do was get the seats disassembled. For 68, there is no nut over the swivel pins where the arms of the back rest attaches to the seat bottom. These arms were not easy to lift off the pins. I had to use a large screwdriver as a lever to move one arm up and off the pin. I used a folded towel to protect the vinyl and the finish on the arm of the back rest.

Fortunately, the back rests are both in perfect condition and will only get a good scrubbing and some vinyl conditioner.

I originally thought the seats were completely original and had likely never been taken apart but as I started removing the seat covers, I realized I wasn't the first to take these apart. First clue was finding quite a few of the sharp tabs that hold the seat covers on the frames were broken off and several previous repairs had been made which were not well done. Only one of the broken sharp tabs that holds the seat cover on is missing in this picture but there was a total of 7 missing tabs between the two seats. A previous owner had also stuffed these pieces of foam between the coils to add some support I guess?? I did not put them back in. Starting in 69, the seat spring design is totally different in that they only have 3 sine wave style springs instead of all the round coils as the earlier seats. I find these 68 seats much more comfortable and I sit higher than on my later Ghia seats.

Some of the tabs had been replaced by these round clips which just grab onto the vinyl as the clip is snapped over the the metal frame.

In other areas, the vinyl had actually been rivetted to the metal frame. I don't know how this didn't just cut a round hole in the vinyl?

Some of the hardware was missing as well. Two of the four washers with the 90 degree tab were missing. Fortunately, I had some spares.

Also missing was two of the four metal fittings that hold the vinyl away from the hinge area.

I didn't have any spares so I made a pair. Their not perfect but they came out pretty similar and they do the job. I don't think anyone could pick out the fakes!

Removing the seat cover is much easier if done on the floor. Seeing as the sharp tabs appeared to be easy to break off, I didn't want to risk breaking more so I did not bend them to remove the seat cover. I found that taking the front off first was easier and less likely to cause damage. There's more room for compressing the springs at the front and I was able to pull the vinyl far enough beyond the sharp tabs to allow lifting the vinyl up to clear the end of the tabs. The front of the seat cover has a single, long pocket across the front edge and around each front corner. Inside this pocket is a bendable wire which gets pulled tight with each end wrapped around metal bars of the seat. This wire holds the vinyl over the sharp tabs so that the vinyl doesn't simply rip free over time. The two ends tied to the seat can be seen in this picture.

When I started, the wire was broken into a half dozen short pieces and one end was totally missing.

To hold the vinyl down on the sides of the frame, the vinyl is sewn onto a piece of cardboard and then tucked into a channel. There's a hole in the vinyl that slips over the hinge pin for the back rest. With a screw driver or a narrow putty knife, slip the tool down into the channel and open up the channel across the entire length about 1/8 inch which will relax the pressure on the vinyl covered cardboard. Now just carefully lift the vinyl covered cardboard up and out.

There are two flaps of vinyl that are each attached to a sharp metal tab at the back corners. These slip off easily. Last, the back side of the seat cover has to be released from the sharp tabs in the back. The seat cover has a similar pocket with a stiff metal rod, except that it's not sewn in, the vinyl is simply folded and wrapped around the rod and then pulled up and over the sharp tabs. With the other 3 sides released, it was quite easy to compress the frame and pull the seat cover forward and off the tabs without ever having to bend the tabs.

I made new tabs from scrap metal.

For the front of the frame I was able to drill holes and attach the new tabs with self threading screws.

On the back edge, the spring assembly is taller then the frame so I couldn't get the drill into position. Since the vinyl stretches over the tubular frame, I didn't want to have the vinyl stretched over screw heads so I went with rivets in this area.

My 68 seats have foam glued over the coconut husk forms. Not knowing any better, I thought the foam was original, but later discovered that it was a modification done a long time ago. This explained the broken sharp tabs and the rivets through the vinyl seat cover. Being that these 68 seats are very comfortable, I decided to keep the foam even though it's not original. The foam pieces are glued onto the coconut husk form so that work was well done.

Now onto trying to undo the botched vinyl repair. Some of the vinyl mess was peeling on it's own and I was hoping all of it would simply peel off easily but no such luck. Turns out the thicker areas could be peeled off but thinner areas were a problem. After I peeled all that I could, I tried several different chemicals on what remained and nothing would lift it.

The "repair" done by the dealer looks like it was a two step process, first gluing a thin spongy foam filler over the open area, and then coating the whole area with a black paint like finish? Luckily, alcohol totally dissolved and removed the black finish.

I eventually tried carefully and slowly scraping away at the thin layer of glue with a razor blade and found that if I kept the surface wet with either alcohol or mineral oil, it would minimize the risk of damaging the surface. I spent more than 10 hours on the drivers seat alone. Then used Simple Green and small scrub brushes to deep clean the entire seat cover repeatedly until it was clean. The basket weave sections can really hold a lot of grime and dirt.

The surface where there was glue has some scaring, but I've been treating the seat covers with vinyl & leather conditioner and it's getting better with each application.

Now I could finally get to stitching the open seams. I was careful to match up all the holes in the vinyl one at a time which turned out to be time consuming but simpler than I expected. All of the edges were completely intact and none of the holes were ripped open, so this made for a very permanent and proper repair.

The last thing to do before putting the seat covers back on was to run strings through the seat and attaching them to the back side of the seat cover to put the pleats, or tucks, back in. The pleats, which were released during the foam installation many years ago, had not been put back. The tucks are formed by 7 individual strings that wrap around a main string woven through a plastic lined cloth backing on the seat cover. Fortunately, the 7 individual strings were still intact and still pulling the coconut husk form down but not holding the seat cover against the coconut husk form. I was able to use the positions of these strings to locate where my new strings needed to go, and install a second set in the same locations except the new set of strings go through all the layers, including the woven string on the back of the seat cover. These pull the seat cover down. There's an excellent thread in the stickies by "Kingkarmann" that describes, step by step how to do this so I won't get into much detail here. The link to that thread is:
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=777661

For the sake of originality, I left the original 7 strings in place even though they are no longer needed. They are original after all.

These 7 strings plus the main string woven into the seat cover have to be in position prior to putting the cover back on the frame. once this is done, I reversed the order and reinstalled the seat covers. Started by placing the seat cover over the frame then flip the seat upside down on the floor, preferably a carpeted floor. While using my knees and hands, I compressed the seat springs and attach the back section first. Next, I pulled the sides up and into the slots. Next, I pulled the front of the cover up and over the front tubular frame and pulled all the slack I could. Then I compressed the front edge down and starting at one of the center sharp tabs, pulled the cover over and onto the tabs one at a time while making sure the wire in the pocket goes over the sharp tabs as well. There's no need to bend the tabs if they were left alone to begin with. Next, I pulled the wire tight and wrapped the ends around a secure piece of the frame. Next, I had to go back to the rear corners and slip the small flaps of vinyl under the frame and up onto the sharp metal tabs. Lastly, I used a long piece of wood placed against the vinyl covered side slot and gently hammered the metal slot back against the vinyl. It doesn't have to be tight, just enough to make it snug.

All that is left now was to pull the strings for the pleat and tie the strings to the rod on the frame. I found that these strings have to be tied quite tight in order to get the original appearance. I was concerned that the cloth backing might not be able to hold this tension but the cloth has a type of plastic coating on the back side which is there to strengthen the material. The cloth backing on the passenger seat seemed a little rougher so I decided to glue on some added material.

Before putting the seat backs onto the seat bottom, I applied several treatments of leather and vinyl conditioner making sure to let them totally dry between applications. Though they looked very clean before I started, I was amazed at how much dirt and grime came off. Amazing how well black can hide dirt!!

While the seats were out, I also wiped down the seat tracks in the car and on the seats and greased them up generously with Lube Stik. This is really good stuff and it made the seats slide much easier. It goes on like wax and is not greasy.

Not as good as new, but I'm very happy with the results.

_________________
Marc
68 Karmann Ghia Cabrio Autostick
71 Karmann Ghia Cabrio

Previously Owned:
2011 VW EOS Hard Top Conv
2008 Saab 9-3 2.0T Conv
2003 Saab 9-3 SE Conv
2001 Saab 9-3 Conv
1998 BMW 3 Series Conv
1997 Saab 900 Conv
1997 Mazda Miata

68 Ghia Vert Survivor with 22,350 miles: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=768107&highlight=
71 Ghia Vert Restoration: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=726710&postorder=asc

[Era Vulgaris]

Excellent work, those seats turned out great! I can't believe you spent 10 hours removing that goop. So frustrating how someone else's incompetence can turn a simple repair into a nightmare job. Amazing result though.
_________________
Currently own:
66 Karmann Ghia, L390 Gulf Blue, under construction, here: www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=760505&highlight=
99 Mazda MX-5 10AE, Sapphire Blue Mica, 6 speed, LSD

Previously owned:
98 Porsche Boxster, silver, 2.5L -- 67 Karmann Ghia, Black, 1500sp -- 98 BMW Z3, Atlanta Blue Metallic, 2.8L I6 -- 75 Porsche 914, Laguna Blue, 2270cc -- 72 Porsche 914, Signal Orange, 1.7 FI -- 74 Karmann Ghia, Black, 1600dp -- 74 Triumph TR6 with O.D., sapphire blue

[Marcdeb]

[sputnick60]

Nice effort on the seats and documenting the method. I've added this to the "How to" sticky.
Thanks

Nicholas
_________________
'66 Karmann Ghia Cabriolet...
'65 Porsche 356C Coupe...
2005 Mecedes Benz C180 Kompressor Estate
Stop dead photo links! Post your photos to The Samba Gallery!

[John Moxon]

[Marcdeb]

[Marcdeb]

[Reimenizer]

Seats came out great. Nice work and great information and detail. This post came in just time for me to repair my seats.

Fortunately, my seats are not ripped at all. My car is a 71 and I am not sure the seats are 71’s. Mine just sag too much and you sit really low. Not sure if they were like this when new. I’ll have to take them out and see what needs to be done. Not sure if it has foam or not. From the bottom they look unmolested. I’ll have to take a look.

Thanks for posting.

[Marcdeb]

[kingkarmann]

It's so very satisfying to resurrect an original isn't it?
I don't comment much anymore put I do follow along.
Outstanding workmanship. But I wouldn't expect anything less from a fellow OCD sufferer
_________________
"Depression is a malfunction of the instrument we use to determine reality.”

Mike Gerson

What is your "Bespoke Reality"?

[Marcdeb]

[kent70ghia]

Crap, now i'm gonna have to pull my seats again. I restitched the split seams on the the drivers seat, and added a foam pad, but didn't do as good a job as you!

[Marcdeb]

[kent70ghia]

Thanks, i bought foam for both seats from CIP1, i think. I believe the tabs are still good, I just had a hard time stretching the cover all the way. Also, I did not get the tuck in the seat tight enough. A project for another day!




quote="Marcdeb"]

[Reimenizer]

Here is my seat. You can see the sagging in the seat. I am a little apprehensive to take them apart.

[Marcdeb]

Your seats are the newer design. They have a different spring system, but they basically come apart the same way. It's not difficult at all. Just take your time - one step at a time. I think the foam treatment like on mine would solve the sagging. I believe you can buy foam forms custom made for Ghias but the 1 inch foam by the yard is probably just as effective.
_________________
Marc
68 Karmann Ghia Cabrio Autostick
71 Karmann Ghia Cabrio

Previously Owned:
2011 VW EOS Hard Top Conv
2008 Saab 9-3 2.0T Conv
2003 Saab 9-3 SE Conv
2001 Saab 9-3 Conv
1998 BMW 3 Series Conv
1997 Saab 900 Conv
1997 Mazda Miata

68 Ghia Vert Survivor with 22,350 miles: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=768107&highlight=
71 Ghia Vert Restoration: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=726710&postorder=asc

[Reimenizer]

Ok. I have a memory foam mattress topper that we used to use in out old RV. It is not super dense. Will this work or does the foam need to contoured? I could shape the memory foam and double it up on the sides of the seat bottom? Does that seem plausible? Or just run a piece of foam down the center?

[Marcdeb]

[Reimenizer]

Ok thank you. I appreciate the link.