Greetings All:
My 82 SC generally lives in one of the two regular stalls in our garage, next to my wife's car. The "shop" bay is the one with my mid-rise left and all the gear, and since July 2019 (i.e., coming up on three years now) has been occupied by the ongoing '87 924S project. The 911 has been a very reliable partner, it's corroded ignition wire connector notwithstanding, but I had a brief list of items to deal with before the '22 driving season. This list has actually existed for the past 3 or 4 winters, but inertia can be a terrible enemy to progress.
First off, the driver's seat; it had two issues. First and most noticeable, on the lower cushion, my (somewhat zaftig) left thigh could feel the steel frame pushing through. Second, the lumbar support was minimal; I'd added an aftermarket air cushion a few seasons back which ameliorated things, but it still needed improvement.
Before I get into the work I've just wrapped-up, a couple of observations, after the fact.
1. I got this car with 183K miles and now it has 197K. It sounds so obvious, but with the seat disassembled and in front of your eyes, you realize just how much wear a driver's seat suffers on an older, higher miles car. We see the need for new covers, as in, new upholstery/not slip covers, but the foam wears, too. So I can now understand that "restoring" a set of Porsche seats would often include the replacement of the foam with the correct factory molded items, as opposed to a guy carving replacements from a block of generic foam.
2. What I've done will almost by definition be temporary repairs. Hopefully they last another five years? We'll see. The failure of the thread in the seat covers could be the next element to fail.
Driver's seat out of the car and on my "tall-guy" workbench in the basement. Not working in the garage this winter was a must; it's been a cold one here in Southern New England.
I made this visual aid to help me put it back together again. "R" denotes hog ring, "S", the string holding the seat cover to the foam. In the end, I didn't need to mess with the string; having done so would have escalated the difficulty of the project when it came time to re-assemble. The small (1/2" or 3/4") hog-rings around the perimeter are generic, but the wider ones between then springs aren't, so I re-used them.
This shows the left area where the foam had lost its mojo and therefore, my comfort. There's an element of the steel frame that goes up in here ...
... as shown by my hand. The foam in here was crumbling some, but not to the extent of complete failure.
A few years back, we had a particularly beloved coach reupholstered by a local specialist, Tim of Yankee Upholstery in Stafford Springs, Conn. Tim did REALLY nice work and when he delivered the finished couch back to us, I'd shown him the 911 and its seat. So last week, not having any suitable materials on hand I took the cushion and cover up to him in order to buy some foam and maybe get some advice. Before I knew it, he'd taken the seat from my hands, onto his bench and was carving some foam for the repair. Once he was happy with the shape, he cut a matching section of burlap and glued it to the foam; the burlap will protect the foam from that thigh hoop in the seat frame. Then he applied more spray glue and set the section in place. This took maybe five minutes; a guy who know what he's doing. I should note that Tim's shop does furniture and is not an auto upholstery outfit (so that y'all don't call him to repair your Recaro's), but this was a huge favor. I mooched some hog-rings and a section of foam for the backrest, paid him the ridiculously meagre amount of money he requested and thanked the man profusely.
I undid the fasteners holding the back cover on and confirmed the lumbar inflatable cushion I'd previously added was still where it was supposed be. Then I took the strip of foam from Yankee Upholstery and trimmed the external shape.
I then used a rather crude technique to taper edges, using a new/fresh utility knife blade ... what us Brits call a Stanley knife. Happy with this, I carefully stuffed it up betwixt the seatback foam and cover.
Yes, re-assembly was the reverse of the way I'd taken it apart, and the many photos I'd taken - thanks iPhone! - were helpful; trusting memory, even for a couple of hours, can now be a risky proposition for something where the exact layering and sequence can mean the difference between competent results and embarrassing slipshoddedness. PLUS, if you've worked on car seats before, you'll know the means by which the covers are fastened to the frame will not tolerate multiple doings and un-doings; there are sharp little steel tangs welded to the frame and folded over to hold the cover ... you cannot keep bending them back and forth. Thus I had to stop and utter some choice words when, having gotten the cover all tightened up, hog rings in place, perimeter wire tightened and steel tangs peened over, I went to attach the seat back to its base and found that one of the two 10mm (15mm head) bolts on the left side just kept spinning. Inspection showed that the nut welded on the backside of the hinge - now mostly inaccessible within the upholstery, had separated and ... was no longer there to receive its bolt; I could not retrieve it. I could have undone the covers, pulled back the foam and welded a nut back in place, but for reasons already described, I didn't want to do that. I took a lunch break and applied some cognitive efforts, aided by the McCarr Master online catalog, and figured a low profile riv-nut could probably be snuck behind the hole and torqued in for an elegant and permanent fix. Opportunity to buy new tools? I'm good with that, but before placing the order I had another idea of sneaking-in a replacement nut to the correct location with a ring wrench and some masking tape, then gently getting the threads started. I had the right size nut on hand, 10mm X 1.5mm pitch and was able to get it done. I added a note - same green 3M masking tape - inside the hinge cover to remind me or whomever's in there next that this nut isn't fastened to the hinge.
The seat tracks were predictable nasty but responded to a cleaning using mineral spirits, then a little grease in the bearing run. But this photo shows some other wear I found interesting, relatively deep grooves in the metal worn by the ball bearings.
Hopefully this round of TLC will allow the seat to keep playing its role for some time to come. When that time does come, I'll need to budget for, save the frames, new everything.
Thanks and best regards to all.
John