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MG MGB Technical - Removing Seat Covers

Does anyone know the proper way to remove the headrests and seat covers? I'm trying to gently remove my driver side seat cover, so that I may patch a large tear in the side of it.

I recently had success recovering the drivers side top rail with new vinyl. I'm hoping that I can repair the seat cover in a similarly inconspicuous and inexpensive way. You can see pictures of the tear and the door rail at photos.yahoo.com/jeremysmgb (click on the album titled Problems).

Also, does anyone have experience sewing a patch onto the original vinyl interiors? Any tips would be helpful.

Jeremy
photos.yahoo.com/jeremysmgb
1974.5 MGB
J. Palgon

I have a 1970 MG and have recently removed the seat covers. I was surprised how easy they were to remove and refit. (my seats do not have head rests).
The method which I used was as follows.-
Remove the seat from the car, ease off the circular clips of the frame and pull the cover of as gently as possible. I have been quoted $350 Aust.to have the back and bottom panels of both seats replaced with velour material, I intend to shop around to see if I can do any better. Good luck with your repair.
D G Levy

Hi Jermemy, I just completly reupholstred the seats for my 73B. Surprizingly simple task. As noted by DG above, the hardest is removing all the clips and screws (and not loosing any). I took the seats down to the frames, cleaned and repainted them black. Bought new foam and upolstery kit from Moss, standard kit for my year. Using the instructions from the kit and from the Haynes mgb restoration Manual. (Haynes has a good step by step pictorial) it took my wife and I about 5 hours to do both seats. (Not including the tear down and painting) And we took our time. They came out great.
Just make sure you put the plastic sheet over the top of the back rest before you try to side the cover on as directed in the instructions. Otherwise you can tear the foam. (experience) Also we replaced the cross weave undernieth with upolstry webbing we got at the fabric store. Made the seats nice and firm to sit in. I would recommend that you have a helper assist you, Doing it by myself would have been a bit more tricky. The extra hands came in very helpful.

Also, I didn't try to save the origanal vinyl, it was pretty badly worn and torn. Instructions talk to cutting it off in pieces as it is glued on to the foam. You might have difficulty trying to remove it in one piece so to repair it like your thinking.

As to patching the vinyl, I don't know how that would look. Might hold up for a while, but suspect it would fail eventually looking more ratty than before.

Hope this helps. regards Robin
Robin Tallardy

I believe Moss has a free seat cover installation pamphlet the makes the job fairly easy.
Randy
1977 MGB with new vinyl seat covers and headrests
randy olson

Thanks so much for the input, everyone. It would be nice to get new seat covers, but it's not in my budget. I suppose I should have prefaced my original post be saying that I'm trying to do this as inexpensively as possible.

Here's some background on my project: My parents bought the car new in 1975; and drove in regularly (at least when it wasn't in the shop) until 1989. It had been sitting non-functional in a garage until a couple of months ago. With the help of a few friends, I've restored it to good running condition for under $300.

I've been trying to keep costs as low as possible by not purchasing non-essential items, and buying the rest as cheaply as possible. For example, I bought a rebulit Lucas alternator for $55 on ebay (and didn't even have to give them my old core).

I think that all things considered, my recovered door rail looks good even though the new vinyl isn't an exact match. It's certainly much better than the old cracked vinyl. And it only cost me $5 worth of vinyl and a little effort.

I'm not looking to make the car look show quality. I'm just looking to inconspicuously cover the major gash in the side of my otherwise good vinyl seat covers as economically as possible. If you take a look at the pictures at photos.yahoo.com/jeremysmgb , you'll get a sense of what I'm trying to do (and you can see how the door rail turned out).

Thanks again for the advice. Does anyone happen to know if the covers can be removed without cutting them off?

Jeremy
1974.5 MGB
J. Palgon

Not as familiar with newer B's, but in my 67, once the clips were off, the mateial slid off without much problem. The tear appears to be in the side panel. It may be possible to unstich this and sew in another piece. A home sewing machine can usually handle vinyl if it is not too thick. (wife loves it when I sew)

Advise of using a plastic bag is a good one. I should have thought of. I used a little baby powder to help the material slide on easier.
Bruce Cunha

That's not a bad looking car, especially after sitting around in the garage for 15 years. Twin carbs make it more fun.
The seat covers are easily removed. Just take the seat out of the car by removing the four bolts holding it to the floor. Then you can take the back off from the bottom seat by removing the bolts at the hinge point. Then the seat cover on the seat back can be removed. Once you have it off you could put on a new one. Or, buy some vinyl and sew it over the hole. You could probably find a repair shop that does boats tonneau covers to sew it for you, but it would probably be cheaper to just buy a new cover on ebay.
Get the free book from Moss. It covers all the info needed to remove the seats, and covers, and get it all back together.
If all else fails, just slap some heavy duty black duct tape over the hole in the seat!
Good luck.
Randy
1977 MGB
randy olson

It may be possible to unstitch the side panel and put a new one in. Unfortunately, I have no experience sewing, so I'm apprehensive about trying something that ambitious the first time out. I thought a patch might be easier for now. I'm polling my friends to see if anoyone has sewing experience. If any of them do, hopefully I can get them to help me.


I looked into repair shops, and they want around a hundred dollars to repair the seat cover (cheaper than a new kit, but more than I want to spend). I've been watching for good seat covers on ebay, and it seems the don't come up for sale often). Hopefully my attempt at sewing will turn out better than the ever present duct tape possibility.

Jeremy
J. Palgon

This thread was discussed between 05/05/2005 and 06/05/2005

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