Interior upholstry 2020

[SuperTan]

27 minutes ago, tomphot said:

My rear seats have 35 pleats, GAHH does a very nice job. 
 

Thanks for confirming Tom. I'll be ordering a set soon 

[Conserv]

GAHH gets my reward for the most authentic looking “ready-made” seat covers. Getting the requisite number of pleats — 12 front, 35 rear — seems of secondary importance, until you see 10 and 32, or some other numbers.

 

GAHH apparently does not provide the seat back pocket for the front seats, however, so you need to re-use your originals, or have your upholsterer — or GAHH? — create a new one.

 

Tom did this and his interior is just perfect — if you can’t have a mint original interior! ?

 

Regards,

 

Steve

 

[its55]

Wow, I had no idea seat material was becoming so rare, etc.  Now I'm afraid to sit in mine anymore ?I've cleaned them up best I could, wondered what the "dust" was ... I know it still looks a bit dirty, all original 50 yr. old stuff!

 

 

Edited April 22, 2022 by its55
typo

[tomphot]

7 hours ago, Conserv said:

 

GAHH apparently does not provide the seat back pocket for the front seats, however, so you need to re-use your originals, or have your upholsterer — or GAHH? — create a new one.

 

Tom did this and his interior is just perfect — if you can’t have a mint original interior! ?

 

Regards,

 

Steve

 

Thanks Steve, I had GAHH send me some extra material that I had the upholstery guy use to make the pockets using the originals as guides. 

[Conserv]

1 hour ago, its55 said:

 

This is, overall, a gorgeous original interior that presents beautifully. To protect the vinyl on the driver’s seat bottom, I’d recommend you replace the horsehair pad on that section, and probably that section alone: loose-fitting, inadequately-supported old vinyl fails quickly. Those gentle wrinkles in the vinyl are telltales that your pad is no longer able to do its job.

 

There is a slight color mis-match, at least shown in this photo, between the driver’s seat bottom and the rest of the front seats. It’s somewhat lighter in tone. If this color discrepancy is real, it could be rectified by having the seat bottom dyed to match the color on the other front seat components.

 

I wonder, but cannot confirm from this photo alone, whether the molded vinyl on the seat bottom is the same “late round taillight vinyl” (December  1971 through August 1973) as I see on the other front seat components. It looks more like the “early round taillight vinyl” (March 1966 to December 1971). This is easy to determine. The early molded vinyl has a flat valley between pleats and single molded “stitch” down the heat seams (first photo below) while the late molded vinyl continues “uninterrupted” through the heat seams (second photo below).

 

If you have a mis-match, i.e., the seat bottom cover was swapped from an earlier car, I would not rush to replace it if it’s in very good condition — and it appears to be. I’d simply protect it with a new horsehair pad and dye it to achieve a better color match.

 

Regards,

 

Steve

 

 

 

[Charles in PA]

My 74tii came with the original factory leather seats.  Getting them recovered and put back in the car is on the top of my "to do" list.  For the few maybe looking for leather, World Upholstery has replacement kits, GAHH does not.  

[its55]

1 hour ago, Conserv said:

This is, overall, a gorgeous original interior that presents beautifully. To protect the vinyl on the driver’s seat bottom, I’d recommend you replace the horsehair pad on that section, and probably that section alone: loose-fitting, inadequately-supported old vinyl fails quickly. Those gentle wrinkles in the vinyl are telltales that your pad is no longer able to do its job.

 

There is a slight color mis-match, at least shown in this photo, between the driver’s seat bottom and the rest of the front seats. It’s somewhat lighter in tone. If this color discrepancy is real, it could be rectified by having the seat bottom dyed to match the color on the other front seat components.

 

I wonder, but cannot confirm from this photo alone, whether the molded vinyl on the seat bottom is the same “late round taillight vinyl” (December  1971 through August 1973) as I see on the other front seat components. It looks more like the “early round taillight vinyl” (March 1966 to December 1971). This is easy to determine. The early molded vinyl has a flat valley between pleats and single molded “stitch” down the heat seams (first photo below) while the late molded vinyl continues “uninterrupted” through the heat seams (second photo below).

 

If you have a mis-match, i.e., the seat bottom cover was swapped from an earlier car, I would not rush to replace it if it’s in very good condition — and it appears to be. I’d simply protect it with a new horsehair pad and dye it to achieve a better color match.

 

Regards,

 

Steve

 

 

 

 

Wow, you do have an "eye" as I did not even notice this before!  I've owned the car almost 3 months now.  It appears from what you've said that my driver seat bottom is "early round tail light".  All of my seats look like img 6002, except for the driver bottom which looks like img 6003.  Now you have me wanting some new horsehair ...

 

 

[Conserv]

2 hours ago, its55 said:

 

Wow, you do have an "eye" as I did not even notice this before!  I've owned the car almost 3 months now.  It appears from what you've said that my driver seat bottom is "early round tail light".  All of my seats look like img 6002, except for the driver bottom which looks like img 6003.  Now you have me wanting some new horsehair ...

 

 

So part of the reason your driver’s seat bottom cushion is in very good condition is that your driver’s seat bottom started out as a passenger seat bottom, a.k.a., a right seat. The seat bottoms are not symmetrical: there is a slightly deeper “carve out” on the drivetrain tunnel side than on the door side.

 

If you compare the width of the smooth vinyl bolster faces, you’ll see that the door side of your driver’s seat (blue circle at far right) is narrower than the width of the smooth vinyl booster face on the tunnel side (green circle). It should be the opposite. Your passenger seat has the narrower bolster face on the tunnel side (blue circle at far left).

 

This is no big deal, and 9 out of 10 ‘02 owners wouldn’t even notice it. But this also explains why the pleats on the driver’s seat bottom do not align with the pleats on the driver’s backrest.

 

As I’ve said earlier, it would be easier, in my opinion, to replace the seat cushion horsehair pad and color-match the transplanted seat bottom than to find a really good driver’s seat bottom. I think.

 

Maybe GAHH sells just the cover for the bottom of the driver’s seat. Then you’d need to find a driver’s side seat bottom frame (easy), buy a horsehair pad ($440?), install the new cover over the new frame and pad, and, probably, dye the new cover to match the rest of the original interior.

 

Yes, I am sooo good at spending other people’s money! ?

 

Regards,

 

Steve

 

 

[its55]

4 hours ago, Conserv said:

So part of the reason your driver’s seat bottom cushion is in very good condition is that your driver’s seat bottom started out as a passenger seat bottom, a.k.a., a right seat. The seat bottoms are not symmetrical: there is a slightly deeper “carve out” on the drivetrain tunnel side than on the door side.

 

If you compare the width of the smooth vinyl bolster faces, you’ll see that the door side of your driver’s seat (blue circle at far right) is narrower than the width of the smooth vinyl booster face on the tunnel side (green circle). It should be the opposite. Your passenger seat has the narrower bolster face on the tunnel side (blue circle at far left).

 

This is no big deal, and 9 out of 10 ‘02 owners wouldn’t even notice it. But this also explains why the pleats on the driver’s seat bottom do not align with the pleats on the driver’s backrest.

 

As I’ve said earlier, it would be easier, in my opinion, to replace the seat cushion horsehair pad and color-match the transplanted seat bottom than to find a really good driver’s seat bottom. I think.

 

Maybe GAHH sells just the cover for the bottom of the driver’s seat. Then you’d need to find a driver’s side seat bottom frame (easy), buy a horsehair pad ($440?), install the new cover over the new frame and pad, and, probably, dye the new cover to match the rest of the original interior.

 

Yes, I am sooo good at spending other people’s money! ?

 

Regards,

 

Steve

 

 

I think I will replace the cushion at some point and just add the rest of it to notes of interesting history about the car! ? I wonder what VIN my driver seat former passenger seat came out of ?

[SydneyTii]

Love the look of standard seats, if only there was a way to make them more supportive, I watched a utube post a few weeks back and the similar era Porsche seats had a plate in the base more like a shell, so I guess that’s how they did it…. One day someone will work it out? meanwhile in the loft they stay.☹️

Edited April 22, 2022 by SydneyTii

[Conserv]

44 minutes ago, its55 said:

… I wonder what VIN my driver seat former passenger seat came out of ?

Although dated manufacturing tags (from P.A.R.A, a.k.a., P.A. Rentrop, AG) tend to be found in the seat backs, occasionally one finds a dated tag on an original horsehair cushion, and these can appear in the seat cushion or the backrest. Such a date, if found on your driver’s seat cushion, would, at minimum, provide a date after which the seat was assembled. Thus, you could narrow the date range. Full vinyl seats generally imply a U.S.-spec ‘02.

 

Regards,

 

Steve

 

 

 

 

[NickVyse]

9 hours ago, SydneyTii said:

Love the look of standard seats, if only there was a way to make them more supportive, I watched a utube post a few weeks back and the similar era Porsche seats had a plate in the base more like a shell, so I guess that’s how they did it…. One day someone will work it out? meanwhile in the loft they stay.☹️

 

A Belgian tuner, Maxi, used to do this back in the day. Be nice to replicate..

 

[SydneyTii]

Love these Nick they’re nuts, I’ve seen these in a pic of a rally car I think?

I did see a set with far less padding that Delia did, not Maxi of course, if something could be done to the structure of the OEM seats to firm them up like the rigid sections in the Recaros I’d use them… 

maybe I should dig mine out of the loft and have a play….. but that means clearing the loft ….. bugger that?

[its55]

On 4/22/2022 at 5:20 PM, Conserv said:

Although dated manufacturing tags (from P.A.R.A, a.k.a., P.A. Rentrop, AG) tend to be found in the seat backs, occasionally one finds a dated tag on an original horsehair cushion, and these can appear in the seat cushion or the backrest. Such a date, if found on your driver’s seat cushion, would, at minimum, provide a date after which the seat was assembled. Thus, you could narrow the date range. Full vinyl seats generally imply a U.S.-spec ‘02.

 

Regards,

 

Steve

 

 

 

 

 

I do have one of those tags on my passenger seat, but not the replaced driver seat.

 

 

[Conserv]

1 hour ago, its55 said:

 

I do have one of those tags on my passenger seat, but not the replaced driver seat.

 

 

And it decodes as:

 

P.A. Rentrop, AG

BMW type 114

Right reclining seat

 

There are also traces of inked numbers, which might have been a date or other identifying marks, e.g., number of the builder or inspector.

And that appears to be an original “horsehair” (gummihaar) pad, in relatively intact condition, in the background.

 

Now you’re getting to know your new ‘02!

 

Regards,

 

Steve