Keeping your upholstery in pristine condition is a difficult assignment for any vehicle owner. Rips and tears in the upholstery fabric and foam padding underneath can occur over time with wear, severely impacting both the aesthetic appeal of your vehicle, as well as its resale value. Repairing your bench seat takes considerable time and preparation, but can drastically improve your vehicle’s condition. Plan to spend about four to six hours on this upholstery repair project.
Repair small rips in the upholstery of your bench seat with a needle and a piece of thread. Work the thread through the eye of the needle, and make a knot in the thread’s tail. Starting from underneath the cushion cover, come up with the needle next to the rip and put the needle back down through the seat cover on the other side of the rip. Make stitches tight so that both sides of the rip are drawn together. When finished, remove the needle, tie the thread as close to the upholstery as possible and cut with a pair of scissors.
Remove the upholstery from your bench seat for larger repairs. Upholstery is held into place on bench seats with hog rings, which are attached to clips found underneath the seat cushion or the seat back. Feel around the perimeter of the upholstery with your hands to locate the hog rings. Remove these hog rings from their clips with special hog ring pliers, which can be purchased from retailers specializing in auto or upholstery repair. Remove hog rings from the upholstery and set them aside. Plan to replace the entire piece of upholstery; upholstery patches are difficult to sew and do not make for a clean look.
Replace foam padding if necessary. Cut damaged pieces of foam padding from your bench seat using scissors, or an X-Acto knife if necessary. Square the cut as much as possible to make even replacement of the padding easier.
Bring the cut of foam padding that must be replaced to your foam cushion padding material. Use the original cut as a reference for how much new padding is required, and then cut the replacement padding to size with scissors or an X-Acto.
Spray the bottom of the replacement padding with your foam spray adhesive. This will keep the foam in place without causing the foam to warp. Place the foam padding adhesive side down on your bench seat.
Bring old upholstery that must be replaced to your new upholstery fabric. Use the old upholstery as a template and cut out a piece of replacement upholstery from your fabric sheet to match.
Spread the upholstery out over the repaired bench seat cushion. Using the hog ring pliers, work hog rings through your new upholstery and attach them to the hog ring clips. Your upholstery fabric may have pre-constructed hog ring holes for this purpose, or you may need to make holes for hog rings with an awl. Continue until the replacement upholstery fabric lies taut over the bench seat.
