Datsun Roadster Forum-311s.org

That looks phenomenal, you could really give Just Dashes a run for their money!

iloveredmeat wrote: ↑Tue Mar 09, 2021 12:37 pm

Pjackb wrote: ↑Tue Mar 09, 2021 9:34 am This is my first time doing this so I did do a few rookie mistakes but I'm pretty confident that I'll be able to finish it up nicely

... and I am VERY confident that you'll finish it up even better than 'nicely'.

Great work as always!
pm

Told ya.

Excellent job!

notoptoy wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 7:19 pm That looks phenomenal, you could really give Just Dashes a run for their money!

Hahahahaha , not even close but thanks for the compliment
That being said when I do the 69 I’ll use a similar process but paint instead of vinyl, I’ve seen the results and it does give JD a run for their money at a small fraction of the cost

Here’s one someone did recently before and after

iloveredmeat wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 7:57 pm

iloveredmeat wrote: ↑Tue Mar 09, 2021 12:37 pm

Pjackb wrote: ↑Tue Mar 09, 2021 9:34 am This is my first time doing this so I did do a few rookie mistakes but I'm pretty confident that I'll be able to finish it up nicely

... and I am VERY confident that you'll finish it up even better than 'nicely'.

Great work as always!
pm

Told ya.

Excellent job!

So maybe it’s me but after talking to a few upholstery shop paying between 400$-500$ dollars to get my covers installed didn’t sit well with me. Now at first I thought at that price it included new foam but all the shops I talked to said they were going to reuse the foam in the seat since it was still good and replacing the whole foam would add another 200-300$.

I know we pay for experience and I have no problem with when reasonable but this to me was not ,
so I decided to give it a try and glad I did
I ordered 1” thick automotive grade high density foam , marine underliner fabric and Terylene padding fabric
I also had already ordered Polystyrene seat webbing and clips from the same place .

I started by cutting the 1” foam to shape and replaced the top layer on the seats , I used the same clip wires with new hog rings
Once I had that well shaped I replaced the Jute at the bottom with the marine underliner . Lessons learned is I should have done the underliner first as it was very difficult to attach the wires with the hog rings with the extra padding

I had already installed the new webbing then it was just a matter of pulling into place ( heating the vinyl with a heat gun helped a lot there )

A few things To note
- the new bottom seat covers don’t have padding on the side bolster like the original that’s fine if you’re using the replacement foam but a problem if you’re not , I cut some of the high density foam to shape in that area 1” is perfect
- There is no metal wires with the new seat covers so you will have to use the old ones or make your own
- if you’re going to put seats warmers don’t forget them like I did , I have to redo that one

I only have one seat done as I need to wait for my seat warmers to get here but pretty excited about the project
Total cost with shipping $77.56 for the foam and fabric and 20$ for webbing and clips

Before




After

Auto upholstery shops must get around $200 per hour. Putting the seat covers on just isn’t that difficult or time consuming. I was quoted $400 or $500 about 5 years ago to install a soft top that I would provide. A friend and I, neither with any experience, did it in about 2 hours with what I considered excellent results. Must be plenty of customers though, every shop in town is busy!

Your seat bottom looks great, good work.

theunz wrote: ↑Sat Mar 20, 2021 7:11 am Auto upholstery shops must get around $200 per hour. Putting the seat covers on just isn’t that difficult or time consuming.

That’s what bugs me about it , it’s like they have a minimum
The same shop quoted me 250$ per seat to instal the covers and $350 to build new custom ones from scratch with vinyl I was providing
The new one is a great deal and I may do it for another car ,

theunz wrote: ↑Sat Mar 20, 2021 7:11 am Your seat bottom looks great, good work.

Thank you

I often ask myself "what am I paying myself per hour to do this?" as part of my decision making process. Nice job, they look great.

Pjackb wrote: ↑Sat Mar 20, 2021 8:47 am

theunz wrote: ↑Sat Mar 20, 2021 7:11 am Auto upholstery shops must get around $200 per hour. Putting the seat covers on just isn’t that difficult or time consuming.

That’s what bugs me about it , it’s like they have a minimum
The same shop quoted me 250$ per seat to instal the covers and $350 to build new custom ones from scratch with vinyl I was providing
The new one is a great deal and I may do it for another car ,

theunz wrote: ↑Sat Mar 20, 2021 7:11 am Your seat bottom looks great, good work.

Thank you

Jack,

The Dash and Seats look great! If I may ask about the Seat backs? Do they have the layered foam as well, or just one solid piece? Did you reuse that foam as well? Also how many feet of strapping, feet of 1" Foam and yards Marine Underlayment to complete two Seats?

Much Thanks

DAC21 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 20, 2021 3:51 pm
Jack,

The Dash and Seats look great! If I may ask about the Seat backs? Do they have the layered foam as well, or just one solid piece? Did you reuse that foam as well? Also how many feet of strapping, feet of 1" Foam and yards Marine Underlayment to complete two Seats?

Much Thanks

The layered foam on the bottom is not stock my seats were redone ( somewhat badly) at one point during the PO ownership and they added foam to to the seat bottoms I needed to remove that foam and add the 1" Curon foam to give them shape back

I haven't done my seat backs yet but the foam on them is much nicer and clean and plan on only adding a layer of thin foam that's about 6mm thick

the Curon foam I bought came in a size of 22x88" so I will have enough to do 4 seats if doing just the bottoms same for the Underliner 1 yards is enough for 4 seats , youll need about 20' of webbing

Gregs672000 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 20, 2021 11:21 am I often ask myself "what am I paying myself per hour to do this?" as part of my decision making process. Nice job, they look great.

Thanks , Thats kind of what I say to myself also , that and will i enjoy doing this

When you figure rent, equipment, heat, light. water, taxes, advertising, employee bullcrap and government regulations it changes the picture dramatically.

Doing things on the side or in your garage is not even close to being the same. If a shop does good work, they will always be busy because not everybody is lucky enough to have the talents we have.

If you can't do most things yourself(like we do) then restoring a car is usually a financial losing situation.

Got a new sticker made for the horn button I think that's going to work well

That looks great. Who did it?

eye wrote: ↑Sat Mar 27, 2021 5:12 pm That looks great. Who did it?

Ordered from 3D car sticker https://3dcarstickers.com/en/category/nissan/

This isn’t the first time I ordered from them and I’ve come to the conclusion that anything with solid Colors looks great but if you need silver or metallic it looks like crap

Almost done with the paint ,
They a few more surprises underneath the paint and evidence of poorly repaired fender bender
all is fixed now and hopefully it should be back home fully painted mid June to start the reassembly which shouldn't take too long








I've been also toying with some ideas on how to preserve some reference to the MrGreen name
So testing a custom paint color for the valve cover , its a very dark metallic green that looks almost black in low light