Northwest Auto Leather MK2 Supra Leather PType Seat Skin Install Guide
Installation of quality made replacement leather (or other) seat skins is within the means of the average DIYer car guy with lots of patience, some decent technical ability, and a steady hand. You can expect to spend around 6 to 8 hours per seat if you are a novice at this. If you don't want to risk damaging your new skins, you want the absolute best install possible, and money isn't an object, NAL suggests you take your seats to a professional and pay them to do it. But for the most part its just time and hog rings, most of the installation mistakes you make can be undone.
Below are the typical tools you'll need...
The important things here are the hog ring pliers (which can be purchased
online and at many tool specialty stores), a pack of hog rings (stainless or
mild steel, your choice, about 75 needed per seat, search for “hog rings” to
find them online), a pair of tin snips or a large pair of wire cutters (has to
be able to cut coat hanger sized wire with out too much effort), and a very
sharp blade (scalpel, exacto-blade,
utility knife etc). You will also need some sort of tool with a good handle and
a little hook on it. You can make one yourself from wire if you don't have one.
Speaking of wire, there’s a lot of it used in the OEM seats. On any section of
the seat where the skin is attached to the foam on an inner section, the skin
is held there by a hog ring crimping a length of wire embedded in the foam to a
wire that is in a little sleeve on the skin (see pic on left).
NAL has said they will try and replace these sleeves and sections of wire with the new system that seats use, which is a strip of rubber glued to a piece of fabric. In this case you don't need anything, just crimp the rubber strip to the wire in the foam. But if your skin has a sleeve instead of the rubber strip, you can either reuse the wire from your original skins, or get some lengths of wire and bend yourself new ones. You can use traditional coat hanger wire in place, but it’s easier to work with brand new straight sections. Realistically the only reason you wouldn't reuse your original wire is if it’s really rusty and you don't want to clean it up.
One other trick NAL uses (but I didn't try) is they use silicon aerosol spray on the seat foam before they slip the new leather skin over it. There’s a lot of tugging and pulling needed to get the leather fitted smoothly to the foam so the lubrication of the silicone should help. I made due without but it could have made it easier in places.
There’s a good chance the foam in your drivers seat is in poor condition. Typically the outer bolster is worn straight through, and the seat bottom is very soft and uncomfortable. No one makes this foam aftermarket that I know of, but finding good condition passenger seats isn't too difficult from wreckers and parts cars. All of the foam in the front seats can be swapped from the passenger seat to driver’s seat and vice a versa. Unless your dealing with a low mileage garage queen and your driver’s seat is nice and firm and the bolster isn't worn down to the foam yet, I'd recommend you pick yourself up a decent passenger seat to cannibalize the foam off of. Personally I've never paid more then $50 for a supra seat from a wrecker. If you can, get your foam from a leather seat as they tend to seal the air out better and the foam is generally more pristine. Unless of course the leather has shrunk badly, in which case the foam will be too. If you can get a seat with the same trim color that’s a big plus so you can use some of the other bits if they're in better shape then your originals, like the back piece with the chrome trim for instance (PS ones can be used on the DS, you just have to cut the missing holes).
Before we begin, it’s important to understand that these skins are aftermarket and they are not assembled and installed exactly like your OEM ones. Every upholstery shop has their own way of doing things, and these skins are produced in such a way that NAL's business model deems most efficient for their method of production and installation. For instance there are no holes cut into the front seat bottoms, you have to do that yourself. This is done so they can use the exact same pattern for left and right seats, and the holes will always be dead on as they get cut after being fitted. With this guide I should be able to impart to you all of the methods and tricks of the trade needed to get a nice install of these skins. Let’s begin....
Front Seat Skin Installation
Stage One, The Seat Bottom
The first piece to re-skin should be the seat bottom. To install the new skin you’re going to have to remove the foam from the seat. For the most part taking apart the seats is pretty basic stuff. I'll cover this quickly and be sure to give tips on the few tricky areas. It’s also important to note that the front seat frames are assembled a little differently between the driver and passenger one.
All of the big dials on these seats are held on with U shaped snap rings. The flat tool made from sheet metal in the above pic is what I use to remove these rings so the dials can be pulled off. Manual window roll up handles use the same style of snap ring so this tool is called a door handle remover. There are many ways to do it however. A common trick is to take a rag and pull it across the shaft of the dial where an end of the snap wring is protruding and the rag should hook the ring and pull it off. With a bit of fiddling a slot screwdriver can usually push them off too though.
The very first thing to come off is the seat backing, the piece with
the little net on it. It is held on with 4 12mm bolts, but don't just go at
them with your wrench or ratchet just yet. They are painted the same color as
your seat backing, and they look like crap if you scratch the paint off them.
Any metal on paint contact results in chips. What I do is take a thin rag and
slip it in between the tool and bolt head, and very gently and slowly spin the
bolt out till it’s loose enough to take out by hand (see pic to left).
The next thing is separating the back of the seat from the bottom. If you’re working on the driver’s seat then you need to disconnect the hand pump for the lumbar bladders. Just undo the single 10mm bolt that holds it to the side of the seat instead of disconnecting the hose. The pump with bracket has to come off anyways and then you don't risk damaging the hose. The seat back is held by 2 big 14mm bolts on one side, and a single 12mm nut on the other. The nut has a nifty black plastic cap on it; use a slot screwdriver to pop it off.
Once the bottom is separate, the next step is to remove the rails. Things differ here a bit depending on which side you’re on. The DS (driver’s side) bottom has 2 separate rails that can just be bolted off; each has 2 12mm bolts holding it on. The PS has 2 rails as well, but only one of them needs be removed as the other is fitted inside the seat skin. Before removing the outside rail, you have to pull off the plastic cover on it. There are 2 Philips screws holding it on, and you have to pull the reclining lever handle off first (just pull hard on it, it will eventually slide off). Mind that handle btw, the post that the seatback bolts too packs quite a punch when you pull the handle with the back off. The PS outer rail is attached by a wire to the other rail. There is a little wire ring on this wire that can be pulled back and then the wire can be disconnected.
We're now ready to start removing the old skin. Flip the seat bottom
upside down and use your cutters to clip all of the visible hog rings (see pic
on right). Once the
edges of the bottom skin are free, flip the bottom over and pull the skin up
and over the edges of the foam. The foam can be taken off the steel seat bottom
now. If it doesn't come off you may have missed the one
hog ring on the bottom that attaches a wire in the foam to the metal
bottom.
You should be able to expose the hog rings on the top of seat now by pulling the skin back. Clip all the hog rings you can see till you can completely remove the skin from the foam. We're now ready to re-skin the seat bottom.
At this point you should have a pretty good idea as to how the skins are attached to the foam. Check out your new bottom seat skin. Look at the inside of it and check if your seat was assembled with rubber strips in place of the metal wire in sleeves as your original had. If it’s all rubber everywhere, you don't need to transfer over the small strips of wire in your old skin. If you have sleeves instead of rubber in a few places, transfer over the wire now or make new ones. There is one piece everyone will have to transfer over. That’s the long piece of wire that runs along the outside edge of the skin. If you have new replacement wire that is long enough you can use that instead if you like, but you will have to insert one continuous piece of wire into the grey sleeve that runs the length of outer edge on the new skin. I didn't have wire pieces long enough so I reused my old ones. I also had trouble getting the old ones out of the old skin so I ended up cutting them out with a razor.
Before you attach the new skin, you have to make a small adjustment. The long rubber strips that run front to back need to be cut once where the middle bar that runs left to right is so the seat deforms properly. If you look at your original skin you'll see that they actually used 2 pieces of wire instead of one long piece. A quick snip and all is good.
Now start attaching the new skin to whatever foam you’re going to use. Peel off a handful of hog rings from the strip they come in (most come in strips attached by thin lines of tape). Before you start fitting your skin, it’s always a good idea to get your hog ring pliers loaded up with a ring as it take two hands to do. If you've forgotten where all the hog rings go, it’s pretty easy to tell as there’s an indentation in the foam to allow the pliers room. There is only one rubber strips you can attach to the foam first. Its the bar running left to right in the middle of the seat. The first hog ring is always the most important. Play with the skin a little till it’s perfectly centered on the foam, then crimp the first rubber bar to the wire embedded in the foam. Crimping these strips together is pretty simple and only takes one hand. Have a hog ring installed in the pliers and ready to go. Push the 2 strips (the wire in the foam and the rubber bar) together then push the center of the hog ring onto the 2 bars and push the pliers deep into the foam till the 2 strips are inside the hog ring, and then squeeze the pliers shut all of the way. If you screw one up, don't sweat it, just cut the hog ring off and do it again till you get it right.
Now finish attaching the skin to the foam bottom. After the center strip is done, you can do the ones that run front to back, or do the last left to right bar at the back end of the seat. The order isn't important from here, just be sure to get at least 3 hog ties on every bar. Crimp as close to the ends of the bars as you can to get a nice tight fit. Keep flipping the skin down and checking how it’s looking as you go. You will probably have to trim the front strips that run front to back to match the bar, they may be a little long out of the box.
Now things are going to get a little trickier. All of the
top hog ties should now be in and the seat should look like in the pic to the
left. Place the foam onto the steel seat bottom. Be sure to get the thigh
supports into the holes in the foam, then pull the edges of the foam over the
edges of the steel at the back end. With all of the skin's top strips attached
to the foam, pull the edges of the skin over the foam and wrap them around the
steel bottom. With the passenger side seat, you now have the lovely job of
cutting a slit into the side of your fresh expensive new skin so that it will
fit over the protruding bracket on the rail that is still attached to the steel
bottom. Obviously you only get one shot at this. What I did is bust out a ruler
and took some measurements of where the slit lies on the old skin, then used a
felt marker to draft it on the inside of the new skin. After many careful
measurements and test fits with the drawn on line, I used an exacto-knife to
cut along the line.
Now that that horrible experience is over, we get to cut our first hole into the new leather! By now you've probably realized that the shaft that adjusts your thigh height is interfering. We need to cut a little hole so it will pass through. Again take a look at where the old hole is on the old skin, then pull the new skin over the shaft and get a feel for where you’re going to cut. To make these holes, NAL uses a hammer to beat the leather into a pulp over the end of the shaft. I tried that but found it neater and less heart wrenching to use my trusty exacta-knife to cut a little hole for it. This is where that steady hand comes in, make sure your using a fresh blade, and whatever you do, don't slip!
Before you hog tie outer edge of the seat skin to the bottom, you have to have the skin perfectly fitted. You’re going to spend a bit of time massaging, tugging and stretching the foam and leather to get the two lining up nice. The idea is to have as few creases and as little slack as possible. This stage is what will affect the quality of your install and your seats overall appearance the most. Its just time, fiddle till your happy and don't be afraid to work the leather with a little bit of force or apply an extra hog ring or two. You can always cut the ties and do it again. Pull each section by hand to where it will be after being hog tied and take a look at the top. If it’s not smooth enough move the attachment point around or massage the foam till it is. When you get it as good as possible, hog tie the outer edge of the skin to the steel seat bottom. There is a little place on the bottom to hook each hog tie to. Tie the edge with the huge wire first. Then before you do the flap at the back, you have to hog tie one of the left to right rubber bars through a hole in the bottom (it’s the hog tie in the center at the bottom of the pic). I used a pair of needle nose pliers to pull the strip up so I could hog tie it.
Last, we have to cut some more holes so that we can bolt the rail(s)
back on and the seat pump for the driver’s side. It’s the same procedure as for
the dial for thigh height adjustment. See this pic
and your original skin to give you an idea of the size to cut. What I like to
do before I start cutting here is feel for the hole that the bolt is going to
go in, then with a Phillips screw driver, punch through the bolt hole. You then
have perfectly marked the center of the hole your about to cut. In the case of
the seat pump bracket, the screw driver hole is actually big enough to pass the
10mm bolt through without cutting.
You’re ready to reassemble the seat bottom and start attacking the top.
Stage 2, the Back
You can either do the headrest or the seat back now, I prefer the
seat back as you have a little more room to do it with the headrest removed. Get
the seat to this point of assembly (pic to the left), but with the head rest
removed. There’s nothing complicated here. There are 2 10mm bolts on each
bolster and shoulder pad, the bolsters must come off first. Once the shoulders
are off remove the little plastic trim that blocks the insides of the shoulder
pieces when installed. Be careful with these, they are often already broken or
about to. Hopefully your parts seat is in the same color if you need to replace
one. Last there are 2 12mm nuts and 2 bolts holding the headrest assembly in.
The back is pretty simple to deal with. Just cut all of hog ties holding the skin on, and reattach the new skin the same way. You tie the side pieces first, and then do the tops and bottoms. Be careful pulling the new top section between the headrest bracing, they're pretty sharp and you don't want to scratch that new leather. Also make sure the tubing for the lumbar bladders on the DS seat are run smoothly and un-crimped. It should look like this from the back when done.
Stage 3, the Headrest
It took me one and half hours to do my first head rest and about 10 minutes for my second one after a few tips from NAL. First off pull the steel pins off the sides of the headrest, and then zip off the old skin. The zipper is tucked into the hole the shaft going through that the head rest passes through. If you have some silicone spray it would be handy to spray down the headrest foam now. You’re ready to start fitting the new skin. It might be hard to tell which side is the front, but the sides should be cut a little differently. Stuff the foam in, and make sure the zipper ends are pushed off to the same side of the shaft on each side. Again, pull, tweak and massage till you get a nice tight fit. Stick you hand in there to smooth things over if you have to. Now that you’re ready to start zipping, you may have noticed that the new zippers are on the opposite side as the originals. This is intentional and is one of those things NAL does differently then the OEM setup, but it works well. This is where that little hook tool I mentioned earlier comes into play. If you don't have one yet, steal a coat hanger and get bending till you have something that looks like this. Use this tool to hook the zipper head. Pull the sides of the head rest skin to make some slack on the zipper. In fact if you have someone to hold them for you it can help a lot, but really all you have to do now is hold the end of the zipper track that the zipper is on with one hand, and use the other to pull the zipper head with the tool. Slowly zip all the way till the shaft on the other side gets in the way. Now make sure you’re happy with the fitment, and then clip the excess ends of the zipper off, and stuff them in the little slits that go around the shafts and make sure they lie flat and smooth underneath. That’s it, bolt the headrest back on.
Stage 4, the Shoulders
With the headrest reassembled, and the little plastic trim
things reinstalled, its time for something new. Take a look at your shoulder
pieces and you'll see that the skin is held on by black or light blue clip
strips that are stitched to the leather. These strips have a ridge on them that
holds them in place on the INSIDE, not the sides that are exposed to you. To
pop them off you have to stick a slot screwdriver in
between them and the shoulder and gently pull them out.
There are only two tricky things with installing these. One is getting the new skin to sit exactly where you want it and wrinkle free (again, just keep playing and tweaking), and two, you have to trim the big new clip strips to in the holes they go in. NAL leaves the trimming of these to the installer so they can trim them for a nice tight fit. Once you have the skin pulled on the way you like, use an exacta-knife or something else to mark where you’re going to cut the new clip strips, then cut notches in so the clip can pop in. Do one side completely at a time (fit, mark, cut, and then clip in). To clip them in use a slot screwdriver to push on the outer edge of the strips as it’s the inner edge that holds them in place. Install the shoulders when done. If by chance NAL forgot to install one of the clip strips, you'll have to cut it off your old shoulder skins and stitch it on.
Stage 5, the Bolsters
The bolsters were my greatest challenge in my install, but that’s because the pattern was off and my bolster skins were too big (the joys of being a guinea pig). Hopefully yours will go easy, as it’s a fairly simple thing to change. There are 5 hog ties holding each bolster skin on. Cut them off and remove the skin. Be careful selecting the new skin as the bolsters are side specific but don't really look it when off. Compare them closely to the old one to determine which side is which. You'll notice the original skins have a large fold of vinyl on the inside that goes around one of the mounting brackets. None of us could figure out the purpose of that piece. My prototype bolsters had them replicated, but they may eventually be omitted from the production pieces. Feel free to cut them off or leave them in and trim them to fit, it doesn't seem to make a difference either way. Once the skin is fitted, apply the new hog ties just as the factory ones were. If the rubber strips the new bolsters use extend too far, cut the excess off after your final fitment.
It may take a lot of pulling and massaging to get the bolster skins fitting nice and tight. If no amount of tweaking can fill in the new skin so it’s tight and has no low spots, then it’s possible your foam has shrunken over the years, or it’s possible the bolster pattern is still a little over optimistic. There are a few ways to fix this issue if you run into it. You can try re-hydrating your foam. NAL has suggested that a water bottle sprayer pressed into your foam and squirted all over can help to renew your foam and make it expand (you have to let the foam dry out before you install it if you do this). I didn't have much luck with this in my case, but my new bolster skins were way off (the initial prototype ones) and I don't think my foam had shrunk much. The other solution is to add additional padding. One easy way of doing that is you can try reinstalling your old skin then installing the new one overtop (this might leave a funny imprint if one of your old skins is worn all the way through). Sometimes NAL addresses this issue by cutting sheets of 1\4 foam to fit the outside of the bolster, and using the Adhesive trim spray to glue them to the old bolster foam. You really don't want to add much material to the bolsters though. If you add too much you will effectively make the seat fit people tighter, possibly uncomfortably so. If you can also try some polyester fill. You can get bags of it at places that sell fabric and sewing supplies. Take some handfuls of the stuff and line the inside of the new skin with it before installing the bolster. If you have some minor low spots you want to adjust, you can stuff a bit of polyester in while the skin is installed and work it till you get the desired look and feel. If none of these methods work for you as the fitment is just too far off, your only remaining choices are to relocate the plastic bars on the new skin (cut the stitches holding them on then re-sow them lower) or contact NAL and work something out. Hopefully none of you will have to explore those last 2 options; the skins really should just fit snug with a bit of playing.
Stage 6, Final Assembly
Congrats, if your here your pretty much done your first seat. Bolt those bolsters on and reinstall your backing and don’t forget my trick for the painted backing bolts. You may find the backing is a little harder to go on now with the new leather. It might take a little force to get it into place. After that, you have one complete freshly skinned ptype seat :).
What about everything else?
I haven't done a back seat yet, but they look pretty simple. I'll be redoing one of my own very soon. If there are any special tricks or skills needed to do them that you don't gain from doing the front seats, I'll put together a guide for them as well.
I haven’t had an opportunity to re-skin any of the interior panels either. To do them you’re going to need a tradesmen style stapler, and some very shallow 1/4 inch staples. You'll also need some trim adhesive. What you want is 3M Super 77 Spray Adhesive (look it up from www.3m.com if you want, you’ll have to find a place that sells it though). The replacement material for these panels comes uncut. You'll have to remove your old stuff first, then trace it onto the back of the new material and then cut it. Then it should just be a matter of spraying the old panel down with the adhesive, laying the new material down, and folding the edges over and then stapling them down on the back. If the upper vinyl sections on your panels are in need of replacement as well, you'll have to find some vinyl locally that will work for you, or ask NAL if you can buy some more from them in the color you need. Finding good quality vinyl at local fabric and upholstery stores isn't that difficult. We only included the side inset panels in this buy as they had to be color matched to the seats, and the panel on the door skins has a distinctive line pressed into it (this line is stitched on the NAL pieces).
