There is a good write-up on installing the leather seats from a while back. That writeup assumes that you are going to reuse the ribs from the old seats. But times and some products have changed. The DMCH seat covers I got recently do not need the old ribs since they have ribs sewn in. The bottoms are different in that they have a plastic strips about 2" wide that is used to retain the seat bottoms snug into the grooves. You no longer need to pull the bottoms tight to the underside of the rubber pad. Instead the plastic sheets hold it tight. I did not take a picture of the seat bottom ribs before installing so if someone has one feel free to add it to the thread.

Since pictures are better than words sometimes here are a couple from the seat bottom:

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I think, but don't know, that it is pretty easy to take the bottom pad off when the seat leathers are off/loose. Then reattaching the retainers would be easier than the way I ended up doing it. If I had the seat leathers loose, I think I would have removed them from the frame end (not the rubber end) which would have been simpler.

But I goofed and fit the bottom plastic sheets after I hog-ringed the seat bottom. So I had to remove the rubber bottom by bending back the retainers near where the green zip tie shown in the photo. I suspect it would have been a LOT easier to take the bottom off before hog-ringing the bottom. To bend the metal I used a wire cutter as shown here:

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Do not remove the bottom two retainers (one each side) or any more retainers than needed. To get the bottom two retainer back into their holes if they comes out, work from the topside of the seat. Once the retainer is bent, the pad can be removed. When the pad is reinstalled, the wire can be bent back into shape ... sorta. I think the chance of the pad coming off the retainer if bent with a hook is somewhere between slim and none so I added the zip ties to make it slimmer and more-none ::-):

Note that you may be able to get the retainers out of the hole in the frame. That is the easy part. Getting them back in by only being able to work from the bottom could be a PITA. You are trying to get it into a hole, you cannot see while under tension. I accidentally had one of the bottom retainers (the short ones) come out. It took quite a while to find the hole and get it back into the hole. It wasn't until I realized that I could get to it from the top even with the leathers on did it go easier. YMMV ... taking them out of the hole in the frame may or may not work better.

The black plastic strips have six holes, three holes each side. I'm not sure what they are for. They are not for securing the rib like it used to be in the original design.

More thoughts on replacing seat covers:
  • Wear gloves when removing old hog rings. I have a blister right hand ring finger that will take weeks to recover
  • If you are having trouble removing the old hog rings, try using a cutter like shown above. The old ones are easy to cut. The new SS ones are not easy to cut! Wear safety glasses because the do fly and fly far.
  • I used a plastic bag (the tissue thin ones from the supermarket in the produce section) over the headrest and then slid the headrest cover on. With the bag it is super simple to put the headrests on or take them off
  • Have some of the larger zip ties handy. Sometimes it is worth using them to snug the leather and then hog ring it on either side
  • You do not want to cut too much when cutting the slot for the plastic trim on the seatback lever. Use a pointy think to align one hole, then put the screw in the other. Then put the aligned hole's screw in. You may need to make a few more cuts. Remember cutting too short is preferred to too long! I found that the angle needed for the plastic trim was not intuitive. Also note that you can see how well your pointy thing is doing by looking from the inside of the seat.
  • Now, while the seats are out, is a good time to vacuum the car and to hide any wires.


Would I do them myself again? Yes
Do you hurt when done? Yes
Would having more than your own two hands help? Yes But be kind and don't ruin a relationship while trying to get these on. BTW...if you can do this job with a friend without fighting, you can do wallpaper together. ::-):