Hi All,
This is just a general message concerning seat cover replacement. I
ordered a seat cover from Chevy Duty a while back. The kit said it came
with instructions. First, I was disappointed by the quality of the
vinyl. It was more like thin plasticky stuff, with very little stretch
to it. Second, the "instructions" were basically: "apply the cover so
it has a smooth appearance" Duh! Like I would apply the cover so it has
a wrinkly, crappy appearance! Any way, it came with hog rings and
pliers, so I thought I would give Chevy Duty a call to see if I could
get some pointers on just exactly what to attach the cover to with the
hog rings. I figure that it would be pretty irritating to poke a bunch
of holes in a cover trying to attach it to the wrong things (they
probably wouldn't take it back at that point), and then still not have a
good installation. When I called, the guy I talked to (Robert) acted
like I was from Mars, and then insulted my intelligence by saying that
in all their years of selling the covers, they had _never_ had a call of
this nature. Now, I have rebuilt my truck from the ground up, pretty
much on my own and figure that I have the intelligence to do what needs
to be done, but I like to do things the right way and don't like to
guess about it if I don't have to. Considering that the seat cover was
held on from the factory in a completely different way, I figured there
must be some pat way of doing it with the hog rings. As it turns out,
you clip the thing to the nearest part of the seat frame that you can.
I think this is cheesy at best. If you pull the vinyl tight enough to
get a good fit, you take the chance of tearing it with the hog ring.
Robert's response was "well you sure ain't gonna bounce quarter off of
it". Well, Robert convinced me by his attitude to return the whole
$130.00 mess. This is the first time that I got less than satisfactory
service from Chevy Duty (aside from an exterior rear view mirror that
rusted almost immediately). Since then, I have learned how to do it
right. I sewed my own seat cover (in the gray that I wanted) from
marine grade vinyl (used for boat seats). It was easier than I thought
and cost about $30.00. I then went to a place here in town that
specializes in auto finishing fasteners and guess what? They had the
exact same semi circular clips that the factory used to hold the seat
cover on (the seat bottom actually uses a little V shaped clip, but the
new circular ones work just as well) . I can't, for the life of me,
figure out why you would want to do it any other way. I used about 35
clips on the seat bottom and about the same on the back. I have the
cover on very snugly (you CAN bounce a quarter off of it), and did not
come close to tearing it, since there is only an inch or two between
clips. The question in my mind is WHY HOG RINGS? You can get the clips
at A&W Auto Upholstery 757-671-7933. The seat cover looks good even
from the underside (just like the factory installation). If anyone is
interested, I can post exact directions for making your own seat cover.
Dave Thomas,
'54 3100
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