Installing New Seat Covers On Hot Rod - Hot Rod Girl: Part 10

Next I sprayed the edges of both the panel and the material with adhesive. After letting the glue tack up for a few minutes I began to stretch it tightly over the edge of the panel and press it down so it'd stick. It stuck the material to the panel, my fingers to the material, my fingers to the panel, and nearly anything else I touched.

After completing my first panel I set it in place to see how it looked. A couple of small ripples, but not bad for my first try. We opted to use a few small trim screws to hold the panels in place. Fashioning some hidden trim clips would have been more professional but unfortunately there were no pros around the garage that day.

While I proceeded to cover the next panel Jim started playing with some temporary carpeting. We didn't have enough floor insulation on hand to do the final carpet install (or the actual permanent carpet for that matter) but he wanted to see if he could use some scrap he had left over from another car and make it work. Once we purchase some better carpet and some good insulation we'll pull the panels and get that handled for good.

The last piece I needed to cover was the door panel. I tackled that one in the same manner as I had the other two, trimming the material and leaving enough material around the edges to fold over and adhere to the panel.

If you are going to attempt a job like this you want to make sure you use a high-quality and powerful adhesive. Jim says he always uses 3M brand, but only the Super 90 shown here. They do make a couple of other grades of spray adhesive (Super 70 and 77) but the 90 is the high-strength version and it holds the best.

I approached the door panel in the same manner I had the other two, cleaning it, coating it with adhesive, placing it carefully onto the material, and stretching the material over the edges.

With the panels done and set aside the next order of business was to tackle the seat. Since the Jeep seat I'm using had a folding back I was able to separate the two pieces at the hinge.

Next I removed the OEM seat covering exposing the seat frame and foam.

The EZ Boy seat cover is then slid over the seat assembly in the same manner as the factory cover. With the new cover in place I grabbed a handful of hog rings and proceeded to stretch the cover taut over the foam and frame and squeeze `em closed using the pliers supplied with the EZ Boy kit.

So far, so good, with the seat bottom done it was on to the seat back.

The seat back was slipped into place just like the seat bottom, but with the back there was only one line of hog rings needed at the bottom between the hinges as this portion of the seat cover covers the whole seat back.

Once the back and bottom were completed I then re-attached `em at the hinges--looks pretty good to me.

And here it is; pretty darn nice for a first-timer if I do say so myself. This EZ Boy Interior stuff is pretty darn good. I'm keeping this in mind for when I tackle my next project (hopefully a '59 Impala), and I hope you'll give homebrewed upholstery a try too. EZ Boy sure does make it easy.