Auto Upholstery Virgin No More!

I lost my auto upholstery cherry yesterday and installed my first set of seat covers ever! I pulled the rear seat out of my Road Runner and put new Legendary Interior covers on them. It took about two hours, but the process isn't that hard.

I did discover two things yesterday. The first was that all those videos that LI puts up on youtube aren't as useful as I thought they were. They keep insisting that you mount and attach covers at the rear/bottom of the seat first, then stretch them out over the top/front, which is where the foam is the thickest, which made no sense to me since that seems to be the hardest way to do it. I watched some videos from other sources, and one of them started the cover from the top/front, so I went with the exception to the rule and they went on just fine. From what I could tell, the issue with LI is making sure the covers are centered, and you can make sure of that just as easily from the front/top as from the rear/bottom.

The second thing I learned is that I had thought Chrysler only changed the foam for the front seats between model years and that the rear seats stayed the same from 1971-1974, but apparently they did make changes. My rear seat is a 1974, and I don't like the pattern of the covers as much as from the 71-72 cars, so I ordered 71-72 covers and it looked like the 74 foam is about 1.5" shorter than the 71-72 foam. I could pull the cover at the top tight so it looked flat, but if you pressed down on it you would know there was no foam beneath it. My fix was I had used one of those cheap one-piece covers that cost $10 at Pep Boys on the back seat and was going to toss it, but it does have foam backing so I folded the cover and foam over four times until it created a strip about six inches wide, and slid it in so it was on top of the seat foam and that filled the gap pretty well. I have some minor wrinkles at the top corners that I might fill out with paper towels or something, or maybe just leave them as a badge of honor.

Thanks, I'll be doing this to mine soon. I have the Legendary covers sitting in the garage just waiting to be installed.

Congratulations. How's the quality of the covers? I've heard mixed reviews on Legendary's stuff.

I did the seats on my 63 last year and was happy with Legendary quality. Make sure the vinyl is warm so you can stretch it over the frames. Another set of hands isn't a bad idea to help pull and stretch. If you have the metal stays in your old seats don't forget to put those in the new covers before installation.

I was happy as could be with the quality of the covers. As for installing, I did need my son's help to push down on one corner of the seat bottom to finish getting the cover over the frame. I was about to call him in again for the top section, but I used an 8" crescent wrench as a shoe horn and slipped the cover over the last frame corner.

One other recommendation I would make is get the right tools. I bought a pair of hog ring pliers and connectors off a website, and I went to Lowes to get a flush cutter since I saw those used in the LI videos to remove the old hog rings. The cost of a pair of flush wire cutters was $17.99, but they had a set of ten pliers, which has one of everything you could need, on sale for $29.99, so I just bought the set. It has a pair of medium flush cutters and a pair of conventional dykes, and it has a pair of needle nose and bent needle nose pliers, which I found pretty useful in removing the old hog rings after I cut them. They've been in place for 40+ years and even once they're cut they are still a PITA to get out.

One other thing you might need is a dust respirator. When you pull those covers off you're going to get hit with 40+ years of dust, dirt, dog hair, rust, fart residue, kids lunches, and God knows what else.

I recovered the fronts in my Charger a year ago. New Legendary covers I got off Craigslist for $100 and new seat foam from Dante's. Thought it was pretty easy, just busy work. Nice feeling, save some cash and know you did it yourself.
Now post up some pics! ha ha ha

I did my interior myself. I did the rear the same way you did. I figured that was the best way as well. Mine came out ok, and I can say I did it myself. How about some pictures of the finished product? My rear seat foam was non-existent so I bought burlap and some foam and carved it out.

Ok, as requested here are some pics of the top...





and the bottom:

Bruzilla said:

One other thing you might need is a dust respirator. When you pull those covers off you're going to get hit with 40+ years of dust, dirt, dog hair, rust, fart residue, kids lunches, and God knows what else.

Click to expand...

That's some funny stuff right there, but I digress!
I don't know why people are so scared to do this themselves? It's really not that hard, no different than changing the sheets on a bed really. Cr8crshr was really reluctant to do his 300 when he had it, and was going to pay the man to do it. I told him I was going to do mine and he said he'd help and watch. Saw how easy it was and did it himself, with the help of me of course. It does go a lot easier with the help of a extra set of hands. Good job!

Thanks and I agree it's not very hard. I did have some wrinkles here and there, but I just left the seats out in the backyard all day and let the sun heat up the vinyl and the wrinkles were gone by 4:00.

Nice job Bruzilla, they look great!