Been Doing Some DIY Upholstery......

[IN51GHT]

Been doing work on the interior of our Bongo camper van, post having had a new engine fitted (nice & cheap - not)

The original seats were tired & tatty & to be honest dated, so we cut them up & used the old material as templates, I did the cutting up, making the templates & cutting out the new fabric & a little sewing. SWMBO did most of the sewing however, this is the result on the passenger side.



I re-covered the door card too.



The drivers seat was knackered........



So I cut up the rear seat we removed when we fitted the kitchens, glued some sections to the bolsters on the seat base & carved with an angle grinder.





Just waiting on the 1/4" memory foam to arrive so I can glue it onto the repair to smooth it off & some 1" memory foam to plump up the base a bit as it's sunk.

Once the front is complete, it's time to attack the rear seat, which will, I'm sure be a pretty mammoth task.

[CrutyRammers]

Bloody hell, that's neat. In my limited experience, any sort of upholstery is very difficult to get looking good.

[b2hbm]

Congratulations, you have a new sideline to supplement the pocket money !

That's very neat work and gives the interior a modern fresh look. Matching door panels set it off nicely as well.

We had a Bongo as well a few years ago, very comfortable and easy to drive, but not so good on economy. And I bet your new engine didn't come cheap either ?

Brian

[IN51GHT]

That's the front cabin area finished. Pretty happy with it.

Time to move to the rear.

[steveo3002]

is it proper car cloth ? if so where did you find it , ive always struggled to find proper automotive stuff

[IN51GHT]

steveo3002 said:

is it proper car cloth ? if so where did you find it , ive always struggled to find proper automotive stuff

Yes, it's the same type of fabric used on many Hondas, it's called spacer fabric, seconds from Ebay due to a flaw running along it's length. The flaw can be worked around though as the panels are quite small on these seats.

More worryingly this sheet steel part should be attached to the frame............



Some really dodgey OEM welding here

[IN51GHT]

Backs of the rear seat done. Looking good. It looks like the fabric is lose in the photo but it's not, the weave looks odd in photos.

The area around the armrest has a hard insert to push in once the armrest is covered, that will sort the bagginess out there.

[buzzer]

That's a top job! looks very professional!

[wildoliver]

I'm blown away that's outstanding!

What sewing machine did you use?

[Mr2Mike]

Very nice work!

[IN51GHT]

wildoliver said:

I'm blown away that's outstanding!

What sewing machine did you use?

Just our domestic Brother.

Apart from the rear panel cappings we are done. The rear cappings can wait until the winter as it's a kitchen out job.

Whilst it hasn't been easy, we have both really enjoyed doing it and the results speak for themselves.

[Mark Benson]

Looks really good, we're hoping to do the same over the winter in our DIY Transit conversion, the front seats really let it down at the moment.
Found this place selling Auto upholstery fabric - http://www.martrim.co.uk/index.html

I assume you just removed the old covers, traced around the component parts onto new fabric and then sewed together? My wife is handy with a sewing machine so it's doable I think - did your wife do anything special/any tips?

[IN51GHT]

Mark Benson said:

I assume you just removed the old covers, traced around the component parts onto new fabric and then sewed together? My wife is handy with a sewing machine so it's doable I think - did your wife do anything special/any tips?

That pretty much sums it up. We did add some 1/4" memory foam to the seat faces to make up for the fact the seats were old.

Also added these....

[IN51GHT]

The footrests/dickie seats now match the seats nicely.

We kept the vinyl as it's easy clean for when the children put their feet on it.




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