Bucket Seat Restoration - Seat Resto-You Can Do It!

After coating the foam and the spring assembly with high tack glue, you can join the two components. The foam will pretty much line up on its own, but keep an eye on the center tie-down wires and the channels in the foam.

Once the foam is stuck, you can proceed with the cover installation. Step one is to turn the cover inside out, then line up the center hold-downs, and hog ring the rear hold-down where the original cover was attached.

The factory covers had a wimpy rope-type piece in the center hold-down listing that you can't really reuse. A stiff piece of wire cut to the length of the channel in the foam will provide better results anyway. Slide the wire in the listing, which will provide a nice strong bond between the cover and springs once hog ringed in place. Now pull the cover forward to line up the front edge of the cover with the front edge of the foam and install about four or five evenly spaced hog rings. Repeat the hog ring process on the other center hold-down listing.

Now for the fun part: Starting at the front, roll the cover over the cushion, turning it right side out over the cushion.

For the side hold-down listings, the factory uses a stiff wire covered with a twisted paper. Over the years the paper degrades and makes feeding in the wire into the listing a pain. Wrapping the papered wire with some masking tape will help it slide right in.

Before you put a hog ring in the side hold-down, reach your hand up under the cover and orient the salvage to point down along the edge of the seat. Salvage is all the material on the backside of a seam and if it's not consistently on one side or the other it will make the seam look wavy.

Heat will help you work out any wrinkles in the cover, but be very careful if you are using a heat gun. It won’t take much to overheat the vinyl and melt it. If you are going to use a heat gun, one way to prevent melting the vinyl is to put your hand in the line of fire, so to speak. Your hand will let you know right away if you are applying too much heat. You are better off using a hair dryer as they get the job done, but don't get nearly as hot. That completes the cushion for now; there are a few more steps, but these can't be done until the cushion and backrest are bolted back together.

After doing all the same steps to the backrest as the cushion, you can glue the foam to the spring assembly. The backrest will require a little more glue around the edges. Line up the top of the springs in the foam again keeping the center tie-down wires lined up with the channel in the center of the foam.

After the center is stuck, spray more glue along the top of the back, sides, and bottom of the spring assembly.

Before putting on the cover you will want to install your emblems. In '66 the factory used one emblem per seat located about 8 inches from the top edge in the center pleat. I decided to install two emblems per seat in the outer and wider pleats. I'm not a total purest and think the emblems fit in the wider pleats much better.

For the backrest cover, line up the bottom, as the top comes over the crest a bit and make a mark on the foam. This will help you keep the cover in the right spot while you hog ring the center tie-down.

Just like the bottom cushion, you will need to flip the cover right side out, but the backrest will be a little harder. Slide one hand inside the cover while the other folds it over as shown in the first picture.

This will help keep the salvage oriented correctly during the process. Repeat the process on the bottom of the backrest, as well before installing the hog rings.

With both covers pretty much done, it's time to join the backrest to the bottom cushion. Remember to put the little brackets mentioned earlier in the right position. Now check to see if the pleats are lined up between the backrest and cushion. As you can see ours is a little off.

To cure this issue, remove the hog rings on the rear hold-down of the cushion (the first hog rings you installed). With these out, you'll be able to move the cover around enough to line up the pleats.