I ordered a new driver seat bottom to replace my old worn seat. I am trying to find instructions/advice on removal and installation of the bottom seat cushion. Do I need to remove seat from the car or can it be done with the seat frame still attached to car? I would like to avoid having to remove the seat as it appears to be quite a frustrating task. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

You'll 100% absolutely have to remove it from the car.

Does that order include the leather, or just the foam? You may need to also replace the rubber diaphragm at the bottom of the seat too. Do you have seat heaters?

You'll likely have to separate the back from the bottom.

 

It is the cushion and the leather cover. No seat heaters.

 

You may want to purchase a seat diaphragm. Mine was in terrible shape. I ended up moving the passengers seat to the drivers side while I waited for the much needed diaphragm to arrive for the drivers seat.

 

Where did you find just the seat bottom? All i can find are full sets

 

I found it at https://gahh.com/ GAHH Automotive. Haven't received it yet but I was also having a hard time finding the base for my car and then this site came up last week on a search. It looks legit. We will see. They shipped it out within a couple days of ordering, arrives on Thursday.
I just ordered a diaphragm from Ebay. Not looking forward to this install. Sounds like a real trick to get the seat out.

 

I've always found it fine taking the seats out of my convertible ( as long as the seat motors are working

Move it all the way back and undo the two screws at the front of the runners. Then power it all the way forward and remove the 2 screws at the back holding the runners to the car.

Carefully disconnect the wiring plug and lift the whole (heavy) seat and runner assembly out.

A good time to then vacuum and shampoo the carpets!

Good luck

Paul

 

Are the seat bottoms on the XJS swapable from side to side? Not the base, but the cushion part. This is a common swap on older Mercedes as the passenger's cushion usually gets much less use and is in better condition.

 

Like ptjs1 said the seats are easy to remove. Easier on the convertible with the top down. Don't sweat it.

 

Yes. The almost 30 year old foam on the passengers side would be interchangeable. At that point, I'd buy some foam and make new ones...but you do what works for you.

 

Thanks for all the encouragement and advice. Parts should be here by the weekend. I will let you know how it came out. Gonna give it a whirl.

 

Project complete. Thanks for the advice and help. The seat bottom that I was expecting to be a fully assembled cushion and leather turned out to only be the leather. The item description was a bit deceptive in my opinion. BUT the leather was nice and was the right one for my car. I decided to forge ahead. Removed the seat and disassembled without too much trouble. Used my old cushion and a new diaphragm which I got from Paul's Jaguar via Ebay. End result is very good. The leather is a tad looser than the other seat due to the poor condition of the old cushion but it is done now and looks very good. Highly satisfied by the result. Thanks again for your help and encouragement!

 

Steve,

Well done! Let's see some photos!'

Paul

 

Here are a couple pics. Leather would have stretched tighter if I had a new pad instead of the old crappy one. I am happy with it for he time being..

 

Get some new foams, Steve. That new leather deserves it!

Paul

 

The side bolsters is what really needed to be replaced in mine. The middle section was in pretty decent shape.

The bolsters were unusable.

It appears you only replaced the seat bottoms? What was the price on that?

Thanks.

 

Sometimes you can use a steam machine to rejuvenate seat foam and not replace it. Here are a couple of videos on the process.
https://youtu.be/zH-s2ald9HA
https://youtu.be/5rndD6tzZPo

Jon

 

A big block of new foam was $40.

I did have to buy an electric knife. $15

I may have had to buy some glue as well. I glued some fiberglass sheet to the slit where the seat support goes into the bolster foam to make sure the bar did not eventually cut through the bolster foam over time. $5.

 

Using steam on seat foam will bring it back to life and probably would have filled out your covers better. I did this on some BMW E30 sport seats and it worked like a charm.