Hey everyone,

Replaced the leather on my driver's seat today with a cover from the passenger seat of an 84 wagon. Just wanted to share my findings:

- Paul Seminara's article on replacing seat foam - originally printed in the IPD newsletter and now published on his website - was very helpful and I recommend it to any first-timers like me. I didn't need to deal with the foam at all, but the hogring locations were key. Tip: I pushed the end of a closed needle-nose pliers into the ring and opened the pliers to force open the hogrings; wear eye protection - one of those sharp little buggers nearly got me! Replacing the lower hogrings with zipties on reinstallation was another great suggestion. Thanks, Paul!

- Obviously I had to cut a hole for the lombar adjuster, but I also had to cut a hole for the tilt button on my seat, since my car is a two-door and the donor's a 4-door wagon.

- The seatback is a little taller in the wagon, so I had to cut some foam off the top of the donor seat and duct tape it to the top of the original foam to fill out the top part of the seat leather.

- The headrest poles are set a little wider on my car too, so I had to cut a little of the leather at the top to accomodate these. Since the original seat was a little shorter, when the headrest is installed, it crushes my custom duct tape foam filler, and the seat cover is a little wrinkly at the top.

So, it ain't a perfect replacement, but it's a great upgrade from my ripped up original seat.

Anyone interested in the leftovers from this procedure, including a perfect piece of seat foam from the passenger seatback and both front seats minus the seatbacks with leather intact, from an 85 wagon, feel free to email me privately.

Later,

Jake