Sports seats, change foam and paint backs, how to...

I had wanted some body coloured hard back heated sports seats for some time, but hadn't found any. So I did the next most obvious thing I bought some non-heated ones stripped them down, change the foams to heated ones, and had the backs painted. I spent a bit of time looking for good online details on how to do this, but didn't find a lot of information. So here is what I did. With the seats out of the car go to the back of the seat and lever off the short plastic clips on either side. Then remove the long section down the middle, this holds the bottom of the centre pad in place. The centre pad can now be removed, this is clipped on at the top so needs lifting upwards from the bottom, these two photos show the top clip and the wire it attaches to. If your seats have extra strap on the sides of them which is held on with a press-stud, this must be unscrewed. Then, starting from the bottom at the back, lever out the leather from the gap around the rear edge, work around the seat to remove it all. When all of the outer has been removed, move to the inside of the seat back and release the clips which hold the inner part of the rear leather in place. The rear leather can now be removed. Remove the foam as well, it will be stuck around the edges but comes off easily enough. I removed the backs from mine completely, before deciding it would be better to paint them in place and replacing them, this is how the backs are removed. Undo the inside screws, the plastic these attach to is designed to hinge to make removal easier. Remove the tilt release handles, these just pull out. The back is clipped in place around the top and the sides. It will need to be pulled out to clear the levers Your seat should now look something like this. To remove the base, pull out the height adjustment handle from the side cover and remove the two screws, the plate can now be removed. Underneath the seat, remove the centre from the white holders and unclip them. The base will now lift up, it will need to be pulled outwards at the sides to cover the part where the lever attaches. The plastic side cover can be removed by pulling out the centre pin. I then cleaned up the base, clearly had had a dog in the car, it was a bit of a mess. Those are the main components of the seat removed now. The base and the rear centre pad then need dismantling to change the foams. MC

The rear pad consists of three parts, a plastic backing piece, the leather section, and the foam. The leather is clipped in all around the outside of the foam, these are all unclipped. Then the hog rings which are used to hold the leather to the plastic backing piece are removed. I had to buy a pair of hog ring pliers to do the job for putting these back together. To pull the leather section through the foam section for reassembly I put a length of wire through the gap and pulled it through, then clipped with the hog rings, this was pretty straightforwards. The new foam is somewhat thicker. The plastic is placed on the foam, then starting at one end refit the rings. MC

The base section was by far the hardest to deal with. The leather is clipped and stapled around the edge, this is removed all the way around. The foam section is held in to the base by small white plastic clips which go through the base, shown here These are removed by carefully squeezing them with pliers and pushing them through. The foam can then be removed from the base. On my base the brown mesh material was broken so that was replaced with a new one from Porsche. On the foams I removed from my car, the leather in the base was held to the foam using hog rings which attach to wire rods running through the foam These were easily removed to separate the two parts. The new foam didn't have these rods, instead the two parts are held together with plastic clips which go through the foam, as seen here. You can also see some red wire here, this is going through the white clips which need pulling through in to the base. With the foam attached to the leather the foam is then put back on the base. The white clips are an absolute sod to get in, I put wire through all of them to pull them through the gaps, and with much heaving and pushing and many snapped pieces of wire I got them all in place The leather is then clipped back in place all the way around the base. With the seats all stripped I had the backs painted. I didn't want the map pocked so I had the fixings for that removed and filled to give a smoother look to the back of the seat. When that was finished it all went back together. MC

First thing when putting it back together is the side plastic piece. Forget this and you will be removing the base again to fit it. The centre section of the rear leather is then clipped back in place. The foam then fitted around it. The leather is clipped in all the way around the back. I found it easiest to start at the top. Some clips had come out with the leather, these were removed and pushed back in to the back before proceeding. The bottom part at the rear is then clipped back on. The centre section can then be clipped back in, being careful with the routing of the cable. The bottom of the centre section is pushed back in to place. I helped this in to place with a trim removal tool. The base is then refitted, again being careful not to trap the cables at the back. The screws and height lever are refitted. Finally the rear tilt levers are pushed back in place. I noticed when fitting the seats to the car that the wiring for the heated seats is not the same as in the car, so either I am missing a piece or I need to modify it, a job to do before the winter. MC

*****, I wish i'd known you were after a pair of these. I have a pair of heated sports hardbacks in my car that I'm thinking of selling to offset an upgrade to buckets. Thanks for the 'how to' though, it's stuff like that that really helps the forum.

When I did see them for sale, the colour combination was wrong, despite metropole with arctic silver being pretty popular. If you have a pair of black ones in Polar Silver I might still be interested. I bought these at the end of last year, it has taken me until yesterday to finish the job off. MC

Would love to do this but my youngest is at the right height and age that he knocks lumps put of seat back at the moment. Good guide.

Yep, mine are polar silver and black leather. Condition wise, they're a little tired. The driver's seat could do with a little leather care and there are some scratches in the paint on the backs.

EXCELLENT work :worship: One of my 'to do's' :thumb:

My god man, that's superb work! :worship:

NICE :thumb:

Awesome :thumb:

Cracking thread. :worship: Your "how to" guides are superb Martin. Thanks for taking the not inconsiderable time to link photos and write it all up. "They don't make one or I can't find one, so I'll do it myself." Good old fashioned British ingenuity. A huge asset to the forum and it certainly beats talking about values. :thumb:

What he said, absolutely spot on mate. Brilliant read following your posts :worship:

Brilliant post - just finished something similar , I want sports seats, fitted them and wasn't happy with functionality or the condition of some parts of leather - so frankensteined the top half of sports seat with the bottom half of my comfort, very pleased with them now. As an aside anyone know where you can buy replacement hard backs?