[alfa] ricaro seats

[george meikrantz <gmeikrantz@xxxxxxxxx>]

Recaro Seat Repair
Pat Farrell, AROC-Wisconsin
                  Pat Farrell <farrell@domain.elided>

Like many Milano Verde owners, I was the proud possessor of a rather
tatty Recaro seat. My PO (previous owner) had covered the front seats
with an official Alfa seat cover, but to my eye it was a big step down
from the Recaro seats underneath. I decided some kind of R&R for the
seats would be a good idea.  The seats, and, I found out during the
course of this work, the entire interior, were sourced from Recaro as a
kit. As it turned out, the fact that Recaro provided finished seats
and door panels to Alfa makes finding replacement cloth easier. I was
told that Recaro will supply replacement cloth (and even some foam) for
seats they make or supply for a long time. Normally, automobile
companies specify the cloth and the materials and Recaro makes the
interior to the companys order. Thus replacement "parts" are the
companys responsibly, not Recaros. In the case of our Verdes,
apparently Alfa asked Recaro to specify the materials, so they chose
from their own stock.

The seats, if you havent seen them, are simple but comfortable. They
have two types of clothone was a black and blue-gray diagonal stripe
for the center of the seating area and seat back. The rest of the seat,
including sides and back, is just black. My passenger seat was in pretty
good shape, except for some fading and a slight yellow tint to the
blue-gray part of the cloth. The tint is only noticeable upon close
comparison to new material of the same type. My drivers seat was much
worse. The back was fine, but the seat was worn through the cloth to the
foam in the center and on the thigh bolster. The side bolster cloth was
fine, but the foam underneath was crushed, apparently from being sat on
as folks got into and out of the car. An interesting sidelight, my
Recaro contact told me he had a reasonable number of requests for
replacement fabric for Verdes, but almost no requests for seat material
for other Recaro seats. He didnt know what was different about a Verde
seat, but they seem to wear out at 70,000-100,000 miles, while he hadnt
heard of other Recaros doing that.

I thought finding an upholsterer to fix this wouldnt be too hard.
Wrong. At least in Madison, most auto upholsterers seem more comfortable
with vinyl, particularly if its white. None seem to have a clue where
to get matching cloth. And all were suggesting recovering all the seats,
front and rear, so theyd match in a new material.  I really wanted to
stay sort of original, so I declined.

My next step was to turn to the Alfa Digest. Those of you who have used
the digest, know how handy it is to have a network of folks on the net
that can make suggestions and offer advice. Its all worth what you pay
for it, but most of the advice, in my experience, is very good and quite
helpful. Anyway, from the Digest I got suggestions for sources for the
seat cloth. It turns out its called Monza, and as I noted above, Recaro
and their dealers can still get it. I went to Driving Ambition in
Portland, OR, but I understand Re-Originals has it, and even our friends
at Reina are rumored to have had it at one time. It is expensive,
~$90/meter (~52 in wide), but one person said 2 meters was enough or
redoing the inserts in all front and back seats. I only needed to redo
one seat, so I got a meter. I also got a meter of the black cloth (much
cheaper at $40) but it turned out all my black cloth was in good shape
so I havent used it yet.

I had my cloth, and was ready to start. I wasnt sure what I was getting
into, but figured I couldnt make the seat look worse than it already
did.  Using an old door on sawhorses as my work table, I first swapped
the seat mounts and seat belt ends from the passenger seat to the
drivers seat, to make the old passenger seat my new drivers seat. The
seats themselves are identical, except for the seat heater on the
drivers side, but the mounts are asymmetric so I had to swap them to
get the right seat location and orientation (I didnt care about the
seat heater). This gave me a good drivers seat to use. In addition,
after I repaired the side bolster on the old drivers seat, as a
passenger seat the repaired bolster would be next to the transmission
tunnel. If I didnt do a great job at cutting my foam, it would be hard
to tell in that location.

Seat back removal is just nuts and bolts, but I had to pay attention as
it was to be a while before I  reassembled so pictures and notes were a
good idea. The actual seat bottom came apart surprisingly easily. The
center cloth and the edge cloth were sewn into a one piece cover that
fit over the foam seat cushion. It was held in place by an interesting
system of wires in cloth loops that hooked over parts of the stamped
steel seat pan. The bolster also slid out pretty easily and the cloth
came off the foam bolster easily. The part of the seat material that
appears to be tucked into the foam is held there by a sewn-in wire
attached to a second wire with plastic (nylon) clips. The second wire is
embedded in the a slit in the seat foam, and the clips allow the two
wires some movement relative to one another. The top wire is sewn into a
pocket in the seat insert.

Once uncovered, it was clear that side sagging side bolster was junk and
I would need to make a new one. My friend at Driving Ambition said he
could probably get a new seat cushion if I needed it, but not a side
bolster. I was stuck with making one. Unfortunately, the old one would
make a poor template, but is was all I had. Here is where I made my
biggest error, I think. I was not successful in finding auto upholstery
foam, so I got a chunk of the firmest stuff I could find at a regular
upholsterer. Turns out "firm" in your living room is still fairly soft
in a car seat. In the end, as I noted, the bolster would be against the
transmission tunnel, so as long as I got it about right and the right
shape (for the cloth cover) it should be fine. If I do this again, I
will look harder for real auto upholstery foam.

Forming the bolster was kind of fun. I had a big block of foam (glued up
from some smaller ones), made a few templates, and got out the electric
carving knife. The knife worked great on the foam as I formed and shaped
the foam to try to match what I imagined my old bolster had looked like
when new. When I was satisfied with the shape, to stiffen it a bit, I
glued (contact cement for upholstery foam) strips of muslin (old sheet)
to the surface. This also helped smooth out some of the rough spots from
the carving operation. Since the side bolster cover is the black
material, I could test fit it repeatedly over my cut foam to try to
match the covered shape of the other seat bolsters.

It turned out that what I thought would be the hard part, wasnt. I
thought repairing the seat cloth would be really difficult, but it
turned out to be fun. I carefully cut apart each piece of the cloth seat
coverthere were really only two insert pieces, but lots of seams.. If I
hadnt already, this was the time to befriend someone who knew their way
around cloth and had a sewing machine I could borrow. My wife was
willing to loan me her machine, as long as I promised to take care of
it, or buy her a new one if I didnt. In my youth, I used to make down
jackets, sleeping bags, vests, etc. so I had some sewing experience and
a lot of seam ripping experience. I got a seam ripper (be careful, they
also rip cloth) and removed all the stitches from each piece of the old
Monza cloth so I could use them as templates for the new pieces. As I
mentioned, the black cloth pieces were all in good shape, so I reused
them since new cloth wouldnt match the aged cloth very well.

These old pieces I used as patterns to cut out the new ones and to mark
where the seams would need to go in the new cloth and what type of seam
would be needed. This part, marking all the seams, is pretty important.
There are a lot of them and my guess is that it would be very difficult
to mark them after starting to sew the pieces together. With my old
material as a template, it was pretty easy.

This material is nylon, so edges unravel quickly. The original seat had
all the edges serged, but we dont have a serger (though my wife offered
to let me buy onethen decided to hold out for a fancier sewing machine
in the future). An alternative is a glue-like substance (Fray-Chek) you
can get at a fabric store which essentially glues the cut ends to they
wont unravel. Sewing the pieces together was actually pretty easy; all
straight stitches, simple seams, and only one or two flat-felled ones so
the cloth moved through the machine pretty easily. The most challenging
parts were sewing the pockets for the edge wires and for the wire to
help form the "fold" in the seat insert.

Finally, the moment of truthwould the reconstructed cloth cover fit as
snugly as the original? It did! Reassembly was the reverse of
disassembly, and I was done. I left the old passenger seat as the
drivers seat, and vice versa, so the new cloth is the seat material on
the passenger side. As I said, the color is a little different from the
original due to fading, I assume, but its really close.

This turned out to be an interesting job, that didnt require much
specialized equipment except a sewing machine.  I also have about _
meter of the Monza cloth left, so my wife has offered to make some
Recaro throw pillows for our refinished car-theme basement. I realize
many of you may not get the chance to try this repair on a Verde, but if
you do have the wear problems I did, my advice is to dive in and give it
a try. Its a nice change from rusty nuts and dripping fluids while
lying under the car!
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