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Recovering and installing a set of original lowback seats into the CJ.

While the high backs with armrests are comfy, they just aren’t practical for family use.  I had bought rough set of original seats, and they were living on a shelf in the basement while I was trying to figure out how to recover them, or how to justify paying someone to recover them.  Then a buddy tipped me off to someone selling upholstery kits on eBay, so I jumped on them.  Below are some pictures I took while redoing the seats.

Here’s what I had to start with - some used seats out of a ‘70 or ‘71 Renegade.  Pretty rough.
 

Here’s one of the two upholstery kits as purchased off eBay for $125.00.  Very nice workmanship!
 

Removing the seat frame.

Cutting off the existing hog rings.  Note - after killing my hands cutting these off I found it was easier to use a needle nose pliers and pry them out.

One naked seat!
 

Taking this chance to vacuum as much 30 year old trail dust out of the foam.
 

Some repair/strengthening of the original foam on the passengers seat.
 

The driver’s seat was pretty worn on the outside edge, and looked to need some additional padding.  I was in a pinch to get done, so bought a large sponge to cut down and fill in the hole with.
   
 

OK, so I went a little wacko with duct tape on the driver’s seat - but by the time I patched everywhere the foam was split, there wasn’t much left on the seat pan to to cover.
   

The instructions didn’t mention this, but the original seat had a wire that secured the rear of the seat bottom.  The kits had a sleeve sewn into the upholstery in the right spot, so I used coat hanger wire through the sleeve, wrapped through the seat frame on each side.
 

The instructions said to “Ring the listings on the face of the seat first”, then “Turn the seat right side out and ring the bottom”.  I had no idea what “ring the listings” meant, so just pulled the cover over the bottom portion of the seat and went around putting the hog rings through the seat fabric and securing them to the metal seat frame.  A variety of pliers seemed to be the trick with the hog rings - a channel locks to first curl them together, then a needle nose or regular pliers to finish the job.

Now onto the seat back - which is really a sleeve, and the instructions said to roll it up while off the seat then “unroll it down”.  I found that it just slipped easily over the back.

This pic shows the bottom edge of the seat back, and somehow you have to anchor the upholstery.  Again the instructions didn’t detail this part but I assumed the fabric sections sewn to the edges of the seat back were intended to be stapled in as the original seat backs were in this spot. 

More details on how to secure the upholstery around the seat hinges would be nice too - but I did remember to tighten the corners of the seat back with the seat in the folded position.  This means that there is some slack in the upholstery around the hinges with the seat in the upright position.

 
Finished product.  Not bad for amateur work!  Overall I’d rate the quality of the upholstery an A+, with the instructions getting a C+ (they could also use pictures, and recommendations on what tools to use).

Using an Exacto knife to cut holes where the bolts need to thread in.

Passenger seat installed in Jeep.  Really makes the drivers seat look sad, doesn’t it?

The entire reason I wanted original seats again - the fold and tumble function that allows easy access to the rear seat.  You can see how the high backs with armrests really were an obstacle for the kids to crawl over.

Happy kids that can now get in easily!

Driver’s seat installed - since I’m 6’3” I remove the seat sliders to gain that 1” of headroom back, hence the driver’s seat sits lower than the passengers. 

 

Update:  Looked great, but unfortunately these seats made the (CJ5)Jeep very uncomfortable to drive.  The solution was a wheelhouse notch.

The upholstery kits are manufactured by:

Ron Varner
The Upholstery Shop
Central Point, OR 97502
Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

I am in no way affiliated with Ron - your mileage may vary, your price may vary, etc and so forth.

Comments are closed, but you can read the comments other people left.

1. Michael Boyink (Author) on December 13, 2003

   I bought mine on eBay, and am not sure Ron sells them anywhere else.  You can try sending him email by clicking his name by the address on the bottom of the project writeup page.

2. Mark Randall on July 13, 2008

   I know this is a few years old but enjoyed reading it.  I am in the process of working on mine (71 ECJ5).  I don’t think my foam was quite as bad as yours.  I disassembled mine and now know what you are talking about on some of the terms you were not familiar with.  My wife is using my old army uniforms as material.  These are relatively new that I had before retiring.  We have enough of the old seat to make a pattern for sewing.  My wife is pretty good.  I stand over her shoulder watching and am so surpriesd she does not brain me!!.  We (she) has one base done and now we are starting on the back.  I will be posting some photos and this link on the earlycj5 site soon.  I expect we will be working on this for a few weeks.  I have to be patient as she sews.  I don’t think she is as excited as I am at this point.  The old seats stink like old seats do.  I appreciate your information.  You might remember my jeep.  It is champaign & rust but looks good at 45 mph.

   Thanks

   Mark

3. Mark Randall on August 24, 2008

   Here are a couple of links to the finished project.  Thanks again for the tips.

   
   http://i342.photobucket.com/albums/o…i/IMG_2359.jpg

   http://i342.photobucket.com/albums/o…i/IMG_2357.jpg

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