Bartlett Corporation Leather on Ebay - $150!

I'll try to take a pic later. I didn't have a problem attaching it, although it doesn't close as quickly now, as the leather tries to squeeze a little bit in the front before it fully clasps.

Btw, how did you get the front headrests to look so good? Mine are a bit wrinkly in the back... I found zippering it extremely difficult. I want to take a crack at redoing it tonight.

 

Seawolf, have you started on the back seat backs yet?

My leather is on the truck for delivery today (Friday). I bought lots of nice, sharp hog rings yesterday, a hog ring plier (the slightly angled one that I believe you have) and I bought a compound cable cutter to cut the existing hog rings. Since there will be over a hundred of them I decided a really agressive tool for that would save my hand from certain death. The compound linkage in this cutter reduces the force necessary to cut the rings (it's designed for 1/8" steel cable).

 

Press it and slide your fingers over the leather. That would create rolling effect, moving the leather layer to your finger direction. Do it over and over again to even the slack.

I use my index finger nails to put the zipper. It slides every easily! Just make sure the zipper rail path ahead is close enough.

 

Thanks for the tip. So when trying to smooth out the wrinkles, should I just get my finger underneath the zipper area and just keep going over it in one direction? (that's where most of the wrinkles seem to be coming from)

 

I took a break yesterday. I want to finish the back seats tonight. Then over the weekend, I can do the front seats. Since the seat has to be taken out, I will give a good 6-8 hours to do the driver seat.

I hope the tip of your cutter is small enough to squeeze through to cut the hog rings. How much was it?

 

It's not much worse in size than a large (8" or so) side cutter. I was also concerned about it getting into the tight places to cut. If it won't I will drop back to a side cutter. The tool was about $35 at Sears (I've been needing to replace one I lost years ago - it's one of those things that is too pricy to have unless you really need it, but wish you did every time you want to cut something heavy duty).

I hope to do the back seat bottom and headrests tonight and start on the back seat backs tomorrow, then the fronts. It looks to me like getting the darn fronts out is harder than the upholstery job - the bottoms, once they're off the seat frame look relatively easy compared to the back seat bottom (way fewer hog rings). I've done front seat backs without removing the seat from the car on Fiats (but those were simpler seats).

 

As patsparks noted, Bartlett Corporation says that its seat covers will not work on the 04-05 Prius.

When you search the Toyota Prius parts catalogue, it does show different seats and seat covers for the 04-05 and the 06-09.

However, I thought that the seats themselves never changed from 2004 to 2009 -- just the choice of colors?

04-05: Gray and Ivory
06-09: Dark Gray and Bisque

Could this be the reason why Bartlett Corporation thinks -- perhaps mistakenly -- that its covers won't work on the 04-05?

I don't know for sure, but I suspect that Bartlett's 06-09 covers will fit on the 04-05 Prius. But it would be a big risk to take in terms of money and/or time, without confirming this beforehand.

 

Boo / patsparks / nomnob /tom1l21,

Starting from 2006 model, the rear seats are a bit lower giving 0.2 inch more headroom. That's the only change I can think of. This kit may work.. you may just need to adjust a little bit for the rear seats.

I don't think the major parts (location of airbags) were changed, etc..

 

Cheers! :high5:

 

Wow! Looks very nice! Motivation for me to keep going! My seat will look just like that.

How many hours did it take you?

 

Looks great! How long did it take? Was the trouble mostly in the disassembly (removing seats and trim) or in the upholstery?

 

won't yours have vanilla trim? :bounce:

I think the 2-tone effect will be quite nice, actually.

 

Looks great. Did you have to break that side screw/clip?

 

Yea, chocolate on top of vanilla.

 

GREAT! Now you've got me craving a Sundae and I'm stuck here for another 2 1/2 hours!

In the case of your car the charcoal arm rests on the doors will tie the two-tone in the seats to the other colors. On my grey interior I may stick with the ultrasuede because I like it. Or not - depends on how burnt out I am by the time the seats are done.

 

Thanks guys.

Next to jelloslug's 2008 summer blockbuster,

http://priuschat.com/forums/prius-main-forum/51021-i-just-acquired-new-project-vehicle.html ,

this thread is my favorite car improvement show. opcorn: