[how to] Z3 seat re-upholstery homemade

[resunoiz]

since I bought my beloved Z, I always had two distresses: one solved last year, about restitching dashboard leather, and one about the drivers' seat, wich had a little hole and wass pretty worn out. Exprecially the center dotter leather part, impossible to find brand new (at least here in italy or ebay), and hard to find in mint conditions from other seats: naturally the drivers' seat is the most used in all cars.


last year I made a first attempt with liquid leather


with very good results, but to be honest: liquid leather and recolouring are ok for little holes and plain leather parts, and not expecially for the seat element: repaired and recoloured leather is quite more fragile than the original brand new one. Considering my zed is the daily car, after 20000km the dotted parts started to show a lot of signs again, and the dotted part was quite "flatted" by the colour.

there was only one alternative: find a wrecked car with that damned dotted leather, and repair it.
and then: the solution. A forum mate found a Z3 in a wreckage with the seats in decent conditions, the drivers one had the seat part almost broken, but with the seatback almost MINT. the dotted part has the same dimension of the seat element, so I cleand it to pristine conditions, and dismantled it...70 euros, and the job was on the way to go home.







So dismantling it, another idea...why not use the rear of the seatback, with a fresh, soft, almost new leather to reconstruct the whole seat element?
And so I did.

The old seat element was completely dismantled to acquire the exact forms to sew




and I draw on the seatback rear all the forms. Then I cleaned all like there's no tomorrow.






And that's all the little guys. I made some strign test to find the best matching one, and that was not a big difficult, because in my area the main occupation is making shoes, is not dificult to find a lot of colours and combinations of dimensions and materials.





..and now the very complicated part, almost for me. I never disassmbled completely a seat, I wasn't aware of what to find "inside".
I made advantage to clean deeply the car, and said her goodnight for some days. Bye bye ZUKU!




here you can see how the drivers seat showed more his years than the passenger one...
and in the drivers one due to an erratic "repair" made by an upholsterer (who make his own makes better...) the central part is more "swollen", because he putted too much sponge under the leather, resulting in a wrong seat shape...disgusting.
and the seat in this configuration was less "wrapping" during the diving, making less comfortable to remain anchorated to it.



and now, dismantling 8-)

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under the seat I found a myriad of spikes and laces to join the dotted central part of the seat to the sponge parts, not to difficult to remove but is a very annoiyng job. and in reassembling is 4 times more annoiyng...next to know why.
on the pics can be viewed spikes and laces, and I noticed tha my 97 seat was different from the test-seat, almost 2001: this one had no spikes and laces, only glue to the sponge. And in the bottom end my seat had a textile part instead of being completely in leaher. but who cares 8-) : maybe during the year they changed productive system, who knows.






here you can see the difference between the old dotted part and the brand new one from the backseats: old leather is more shiny, worn out, and untied.




my seats were heated, so I decided without making some messes to re-use the textile part under the leather with all the wires already put in place, this textile part was still in very good conditions. On the side parts I put instead brand new textile and sponge.





and now, it'stime for the TRUE professionist: my mom :
after regulating well the sewing machine (usually used for shoes, as I said before..do you remember the main job of my area? ) not without a lot of imprecations against me and wondering if 34 years ago could have been better going to cinema instead of procreate me : , she started sewing and assempbling everithing.
Is not a so expected and easy job, because the leather have to be resewed very accurately and with nmeasusres as most as possible similar to the original ones to avoid final differencies. And in some parts, leather to sew is almost 5mm thick to sew.

The first pieces are going well, and verified that the heating elements are ok with a tester, let's go on.












Mom starting to show first signs of failere due to hot temperatures and desperations...






YEAH!!! the hard part is done (I tought so)!!!!!!!!
let's put spikes and laces, and try to riassemble it on the sponge.

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first attempt was not so bad, but very far to the perfection.
the secret is the laces tensions with the spikes on the sponge, they have a huge role on the final result and on the leather creases.
Surely an upholsterer knows it very well, I instead feel my way along
it's true that some "professionals" work I saw was a lot less accurate than this. But I was not satisfied.






The day after I dismantled everything : and made some tests stitching more or less the laces....now we're in.
We can now reassemble all!!!
All the metal spikes under the seat pratically were destroyed, so I reattached the leater to the metal with a "brand new" fixing system using elastic strips.









...And I modified the rear fixing system too to make it more solid.
Final cleaning, and car reassembly. Welcome back ZUKU!









two details of the new sewing. mom was superlative.




Now the seat is brand new, the leather is soft as a baby's booty 8-)
I found the right stitching to make appear it new but not so different to the othe, 16 years old one.
AH! I removed the central sponge exceeding. Now the seat is a glove on my back 8-) :

And going on the way, I refreshed the side part of the backseat too.


ZUKU is now perfect!
(hope I will not be annoyed having nothing to do now!! )

[dak911]

resunoiz
WOW, amazing job....great that your mom has the ability and a powerful machine to sew the leather...(and a nice interior too)

[resunoiz]

THANK YOU! the seat was my last "big" distress about the car, now is almost perfect

[khammack]

Great job and a great Mom. The seat looks like new.

[amancuso]

Your mom is lovely. Great job!

[Mr Bingley]

Looks great--love the extended leather.

[HarleyHetz]

If you get too distressed about nothing to do, you could always redo mine!!! Looks FANTASTIC by the way!!

[KBH22102]

Fine Italian craftsmanship....I am interested in your floor mats. The pic on the driver's side showed a mat with ?rubber center that seemed to have a BMW logo. Never seen that one before

[resunoiz]

you have to bring your seat to italy...not so easy!

thank you!

[BimmerBreaker]

Think I read this thread on an italian messageboard? I was shoving everything I couldnt read through a translator...

Nice seat restoration! Really digging the extended leather. You re-did the dashboard too but I dont see that here? Is that coming in part 2?

[Zman57]

And the Mom of the Year award goes to......
Great result! Super looking interior.

[resunoiz]

Think I read this thread on an italian messageboard? I was shoving everything I couldnt read through a translator...

Nice seat restoration! Really digging the extended leather. You re-did the dashboard too but I dont see that here? Is that coming in part 2?

yes, you readed it in an italian forum maybe (www.bmwdrivers.it). I'm italian

the dashboard was phase I, made it last year:

http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum...epair-question
here you can see the starting point, with the leather stretched over the dashboard:
http://www.bmwdrivers.it/threads/301...highlight=work

[cabinum]

Beautiful work! It looks like your mother is as proud as you are of the finished product, and with good reason!

[robrez]

Good stuff indeed!

[2santiago]

You could tell patience contributed to such great finish. I will be taking my seats and panels out when I put the vehicle in storage for the fall/winter. My dad has done countless cars. Hopefully he can still work his magic with my assistance.

[resunoiz]

surely, aptience had a great role in all the job

and yes, mu mom is proud but hates me!

[Pat Gautier]

Great Job and a the best thread i have read in a long time. "wondering if 34 years ago could have been better going to cinema instead of procreate me". That quote made my day! Thanx for sharing.

[resunoiz]

thank you for appreciating!

[resunoiz]

Fine Italian craftsmanship....I am interested in your floor mats. The pic on the driver's side showed a mat with ?rubber center that seemed to have a BMW logo. Never seen that one before

sorry, saw your answer only today!
my floor mats are made by an artisan, with our official BMW Club (BMW Drivers Club Italia) badge logo sewed on it

09.jpg

10.jpg

my original "dotted" floor mats are almost new and no longer available to buy, so I put them apart and I use them only for meetings and big occasions

[Zeta Tre]

thank you for appreciating!

Complimenti a mamma. Ha lei intenzioni to viaggiare agli stati uniti! :-)

[2santiago]

United States? Plan it right...

[resunoiz]

Complimenti a mamma. Ha lei intenzioni to viaggiare agli stati uniti! :-)

ahahahah! thank for your italian! no, she doesn't like too much aeroplanes ahahahahah!

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United States? Plan it right...

he was wondering about make travel My mom to US...not so easy! and she will not be very pleased to do some other reupholstery...and I have to take her calm for some eventual new work for me! ahahahhahaha!

[paul4223]

Vi ringrazio per l'ottima recensione fatta con grande dettaglio e senso dell'umorismo. La mamma deve amare molto. L'interno sembra favoloso! MILLE grazie.


Una volta ho vissuto e lavorato come fotografo a Milano. Viva l'Italia!

[resunoiz]

Vi ringrazio per l'ottima recensione fatta con grande dettaglio e senso dell'umorismo. La mamma deve amare molto. L'interno sembra favoloso! MILLE grazie.


Una volta ho vissuto e lavorato come fotografo a Milano. Viva l'Italia!

thank you! it's fun to read strangers writing in italian... while I badly write in english

before this work, my mum loved me but not so much my car (she says is too "racing" for her... she doesn't like to ride it very much, the opposite of my dad)...till this summer!

now she hates me and my little wheel mussel!

[paul4223]

Your English is far better than my Italian.