Factory Leather Seat Cover Swap Out

[DesignAlot]

I love my 2011 Camaro 1SS, but I do wish it had leather. I have the all black cloth with grey stitching interior. FYI - Leather interior is nearly a $3000 option. I went on Ebay recently (Thursday 21st, 2011) and decided to see if I could find seat covers where you have to remove the cloth first for a factory fit and feel. I did! SLP bought 10 Camaro 2SS models and stripped some interior parts. There is a recent auction for 9 sets of leather interior from the 2SS they had for sale. $599 bought me an all black leather factory interior with the "SS" stitched into the head rests. I should have it in a couple more days... I have looked for a write up on how to take apart the existing interior and perform this operation. I found an all text write up on another site, but no pictures to go along with it. Has anyone done this yet and taken pictures along the way? Or should I document this with pictures?

[DesignAlot]

I have finished all but the headrests. The company forgot to pack them and send them. I called and they are on their way. I should have em by the end of this week... Here is a picture of the entire cloth interior removed.

[ginalikewoah]

Was it pretty easy?

[Blue17CamaroZL1]

incase any one else is interested in a cheaper set on ebay: used $250 leather skins

[Jason@JacFab]

Yeah, how bad was it?

[DesignAlot]

It was hours of work. Taking out the seats was a snap once you know how. All the hog rings removal, was alot of the work. Your arm WILL be tired. Practice the grab, pull and twist technique! Pictures with instructions coming soon. No one had this for me when I began this mission...

[DesignAlot]

This is actually one of the easy parts. Only 2 bolts hold your seat in from the rear tracks.


Now, pull up from under the back of seats at an angle, then up.


Set your seat down towards the back, only the wiring harness holds it in now...


This is the exact same on both front seats. Now you can remove them from the car to work on them in air conditioning!

[VictoryMuscleCars]

Wow, very cool project.

[DesignAlot]

This is the passenger side front seat. It basically has 2 phillips head screws to take out on the inside of the seat (closest to center console). The driver side seat inside plastic piece is identical, just reversed so I will not show a picture of it.


Now the outside plastic piece (on the door side). It needs 3 phillips head screws removed. Then, use a flathead screwdriver to push in on the release prong of the 2 metal clips while pulling away from them. There are 2 plastic retainer pieces, I just pulled up and hoped for the best. No damage done. Once again, part of the panel is "tucked in" on side and should be slid upright to finish pulling this off.


I did not unplug the side piece, just kept it hanging to the side while I worked, just wrapped in a towel to prevent scratching.


Here is the Driver door side plastic panel. Slightly different, as it did not have the 2 plastic clips holding it in. It did have 3 phillips head screws, and 2 metal retainers though. And that "tucked away" piece holding it on.

[DesignAlot]

Okay, I would get your flathead screwdriver and strong pliers ready. They will be your best friends for this...

Here is what your are looking at to remove seat cover from the bottom. 2 plastic clips on elastic cords (you will have to feed these through misc. obstacles until out the top of the sides). One big J hook in front bottom, one on each side of chair, sometimes 2. Use a flathead screwdriver, slide it in there, and pry away. Once you start prying, the whole clip comes undone relatively easy.




Now the back underneath of the seat. The most challenging part of the procedure. The red circled areas below are your first encounters with the "hog rings". You have to open the circle of metal where there is a gap. I grabbed these with pliers and twisted/pulled up. When the gap increases, pull them out with your hands. The blue circled areas have to be cut in half with scissors to work out around the wires (don't worry, you can wire tie these back up later where the hog rings were removed from). The yellow area has to be worked out to the back of the seat then up and through the crack where the seat bottom and backrest meet. You may have luck with the seat slightly reclined. You may also want to wait to work the yellow area out until after the backrest is unzipped and unclipped.


The red areas below are more of the "J clips". There are 2 smaller ones on the outside of the backrest. There is one BIG one in the center. After you pry one small side one off as seen below, you can untuck the zipper and zip upwords! Yay, theres hope at this point! Take care of the other side small one and untuck, unzip again. Then unclip the big center one and peel this back up! Remember that a large flathead screwdriver works best for this...


Unzip both sides

Work the seat skin off around the sides after unzipping. You will only be able to go as far as the seat recline lever towards the top.

If you feel around under the release lever, you will feel a clip you can push up and towards you to release the frame.

Here is a picture of the clip and hole you are looking for...

Now lets turn our attention towards the front of the back rest. Pull the J clip inbetween the seat and backrest space...


With that done, start pulling the sides off towards the front, so you can get at some more hog rings to remove! Take care of both sides of hog rings.


Now we will look at the back of the seat again to remove the side airbags. They are held in with two 5/16 nuts and the wiring harness.


Pull up on the orange retainer clip, then pull the whole piece up and off the airbag.

You should now be able to work the airbag off the side, and up through the top of the "netting" to put to the side.


Now, I stretched the fabric over the headrest rings because I could not figure out how to remove them. This worked fine, and even later when stretching the new leather back over them.


Now just remove the rest of the hog rings in the center creases of the backrest and the whole backrest cover should come off.


The bottom of the seat is fairly easy to remove also, with all the hog rings removed. Here is the final picture of the stripped down front seat. Just follow these directions in reverse to put on new seat covers.


When you put on new seat covers, you are supposed to use hog rings and special pliers you can buy online. Probably even Ebay. But I used heavy duty plastic tie straps and cut off the slack. I don't know how long that will last, but these mostly just keep the seat cover from sliding around. I have been sitting in my seat daily for a month now and no problems. And I am a 6'4" guy. Good luck and feel free to ask me any questions if I did not explain something well enough.

[DesignAlot]

I will continue posting tomorrow. Time to play some Call of Duty Black Ops while the wife is asleep...

[christianmotox]

Originally Posted by Blue10CamaroSS

incase any one else is interested in a cheaper set on ebay: used $250 leather skins

oh, men how did i missed that...
Ive been looking at ebay for some months now for a good deal.

[sene]

I'll be attempting this this weekend. What you have so far looks super helpful, hope you get a chance to finish! Thank you! I'll buy you a beer (via paypal)

[bdsdnfam]

Thanks!