mdisalvo
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- January 26, 2010
- Messages
- 113
- Reaction score
- 4
- City, State
- SoCal
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 04 Eddie Bauer Explorer
My explorer driver seat has always been kinda funky ever since I bought it from a rather large guy. It had a lean towards the center console which just slowly got worse with time and the foam had pretty much flattened out, so I decided to do some work on it this weekend.
Here's the seat pulled out, if you look at the left side, halfway up where it's kinda wrinkly, you can sort of make out the bar from the frame pushing through the leather. It had gotten so bad that the side of the seat would rub the center console if you moved the seat forward/back, there is supposed to be an inch or two gap in there.
Once I pulled the seat covers off (bottom is pretty simple, the top had to be forced a bit more), I found the foam was almost completely ripped up the side allowing the bar to come through.
Then I found the lumbar support piece had been completely snapped off as well, yay.
So I fixed this with some zip ties, which I later reinforced with even more zip ties (the part was something like 130 and I thought I would try this first).
Then I got some industrial strength spray adhesive and foam supplies from Michaels to add some padding to the seats and fix the rip (fingers crossed it doesn't re rip on me...if it does I'll just get the new foam piece from Ford assuming they have it).
I glued the rip first, which seemed to stick pretty well, then started cutting and adding new poly batting around the foam.
I put the foam seat cushions back in place once I was satisfied with the added cushion and spray glued the heated seat pads back in place (my bottom seat cushion had shorted, so I soldered a new wire in place).
Then I put the top cover back on first which was definitely the harder of the two. I had to really shove it on to fit the new padding in there. The bottom wasn't too bad. There was a youtube video on replacing the seat cover that helped too.
Here it is finished up and then back in the car, it definitely feels better and the lean is gone. I'm hoping fixing the snapped lumbar support will help prevent that from happening again. If the foam does re rip then I'll buy the new foam piece from Ford and replace it, but for now the seat feels much much better and only cost me around 30 bucks and a half days worth of work.
Hopefully this might help someone else to rebuild/restore their old padding on the cheap.
Here's the seat pulled out, if you look at the left side, halfway up where it's kinda wrinkly, you can sort of make out the bar from the frame pushing through the leather. It had gotten so bad that the side of the seat would rub the center console if you moved the seat forward/back, there is supposed to be an inch or two gap in there.
Once I pulled the seat covers off (bottom is pretty simple, the top had to be forced a bit more), I found the foam was almost completely ripped up the side allowing the bar to come through.
Then I found the lumbar support piece had been completely snapped off as well, yay.
So I fixed this with some zip ties, which I later reinforced with even more zip ties (the part was something like 130 and I thought I would try this first).
Then I got some industrial strength spray adhesive and foam supplies from Michaels to add some padding to the seats and fix the rip (fingers crossed it doesn't re rip on me...if it does I'll just get the new foam piece from Ford assuming they have it).
I glued the rip first, which seemed to stick pretty well, then started cutting and adding new poly batting around the foam.
I put the foam seat cushions back in place once I was satisfied with the added cushion and spray glued the heated seat pads back in place (my bottom seat cushion had shorted, so I soldered a new wire in place).
Then I put the top cover back on first which was definitely the harder of the two. I had to really shove it on to fit the new padding in there. The bottom wasn't too bad. There was a youtube video on replacing the seat cover that helped too.
Here it is finished up and then back in the car, it definitely feels better and the lean is gone. I'm hoping fixing the snapped lumbar support will help prevent that from happening again. If the foam does re rip then I'll buy the new foam piece from Ford and replace it, but for now the seat feels much much better and only cost me around 30 bucks and a half days worth of work.
Hopefully this might help someone else to rebuild/restore their old padding on the cheap.
I'm also sitting about 2" higher than I was before which is a bit different but I like it.
