Hello gents. Sorry for the multiple topics, but I currently have some time to go and take care of items in my XJS list. I promise I have used the search tool

The outer seat hinge covers in my car are falling apart, mainly the drivers side. Parts are NLA AND “Rough” used ones are going for nearly 100 dollars, so I won’t be doing that.

Does anyone know if either the outer hinge covers from a pre-facelift XJS or perhaps an XK8 might work?

Cant imagine I am the only one that has this problem.

Thanks for your help

 

Mark,

A couple of things:

- Pre-facelift ones MIGHT fit but they do have different part numbers and they seem to physically look different.
- the bigger issue is that they are colour-coded and I think you've got Cream (NDR) seats. Cream was a late introduction colour for XJS so you can't get Cream pre-facelift covers anyway (unless you find a rare Le Mans edition car)
- remember that US cars will probably wear worse on the LH side, and UK cars worse on the RH side. So why not find a UK breaker or UK ebay etc and buy LH ones that way?

Good luck

Paul

 

hi Paul , thanks again for your reply.

My trim is AFW , I can use SDC, but colour does not matter as long as they are not broken like mine….I have a little bit of AFW leather that I can recover any hinge cover with. Problem is I just can’t find any anywhere! I’ve looked Ebay UK, There is 1 in Ebay Us but it is nearly as broken as mine…..that’s why I am thinking of either trying to fit a XK8 part or a early XJS part. Both of those seem easily available

 

Mark,

If you're not bothered about colour, I'll PM you details of a couple of UK XJS breakers who may just have something.

Cheers

Paul

 

If there are no missing pieces and you have some leather you can repair and recover them pretty easily.
What I did was first super glued the pieces just to hold them together then Used a zip tie as filler for some plastic welding (lots of vids on YouTube).
Finally, I added a layer of fiberglass cloth to the inside to reinforce it.
It wasn't a pretty repair but the leather covers it all up.

 

Thanks- mine are sooo far gone, but I am going to look up plastic welding RN . Thanks !

 

Well, that was a quick turn around!

Followed @petemohr advice , plastic “soldered” the cracks and broken pieces, reupholstered the hinge with my left over barley leather and some leather glue my grandma has, voila! Not perfect but certainly an improvement from above

Thank you!