vw seats sricky nightmare

[bobbi campbell]

I am inserting a set of 2002 vw bug seats and the glue on the seat foam is unbelievable! I washed the pattern pieces with thinner and my hands a hundred times. I told them I couldn't reuse the boxing on the backrest because I knew it wouldn't feed through the machine good enough to hit the same holes being they were topstiched. Anyone had this problem before? Price needs to go up next time . It also isn't too good on the machine either.

[RocketmanMH1]

I have run in to similar ,   Try this,  Take a cordless drill or any drill for that matter and get you a small wire brush, the round ones.  Hold one end of the cover down on the bench with a weight,  hold the drill firmly with both hands and let the brush touch the foam backing very lightly you will be surprised at the results.   

As for restitching the same holes I would try two things,  Try to set your length  the same as factory and use a bigger size thread for the topstitch than original. If you miss the holes slightly you will cover them with the bigger thread. That is as long as you follow the stitch path exactly.

[baileyuph]

For clarification, are you replacing a cloth insert and the boxing is vinyl?  And are both of these materials backed with foam?

I did read that there is glue on the seat foam, not clear where and actually where the glue is?  The recommendation of wire brushing it off the material is clear, but that is foam backing?

The suggestion above seems to carry merit, but it would help further to see the items, I suppose.

Doyle

[stitcher_guy]

Whenever I have to remove foam from the back of a covering, heat usually loosens the original glue to allow separation. This is usually on industrial seats, however, where the material (cloth, vinyl) is glued directly to the bun.

Totally agree with RM on the restitching. It takes some lining up, but 138 thread seems to cover mishits when going back along the original holes. I use a scrap piece to mimic the stitch length, but that isn't always exact around curves and such. We'll be doing this exact thing this coming week when we pull all the French Seams from a pair of BMW seats (black) and restitch in white. Should be fun.

[bobbi campbell]

These are vinyl seats straight from the factory with foam (was) backing on each piece. The foam has disintegrated and this is the result from the glue from when they applied the foam. Kinda like the mess from a headliner.I do a lot of dealer work so I know all the tricks about restiching and hittin the same holes but this vinyl wont even feed through the machine without getting the foot and the feed dog all gummed up. Just for further reference if anyone gets these seats you know what your in for.I do live in Fl so I don't know if the heat is a big factor.

[alex K]

sorry for replying so late,
was waiting for moderator to activate my account.

there are two solutions to this problem,
one of them most likely useless:

1)   use plastic foot, but i never seen walking foot made in plastic.
2)   use chalk, shave it off with the knife and apply to the seam,

chalk fine dust will help with canceling the glue as well as with sliding.
it is also easy to blow off.

I've used these a lot when i did not have a walking foot machine.

you can also try, soap, wax, I've heard people used them in situation like this,
but i never tried it.

and finally did you try spry silicone?

[Mike]

We'll be doing this exact thing this coming week when we pull all the French Seams from a pair of BMW seats (black) and restitch in white. Should be fun.

boy talk about have money to burn

[stitcher_guy]

LOLOL@ Mike. Yep, kind of my thinking, too. It was a 2011 BMW 335is. Sporty car, but the interior was all black. Customer had us pull the inserts and replace with white leather, plus removing all the French Seams and resewing same seams with 138 white thread. I also added white double fells to the headrests. We also pulled the door panels, removed the insert section, and split the black, seamed panel. We redid that panel with a white leather strip on the lower portion, and redid the black upper.

What slowed us down was the construction of the seat panels. The factory seat heater unit is one piece spanning the whole face, not just the center section like most units. The facing panels are sewn through the unit and pulled across to make the face.

It was a pretty involved project, and made us question ripping apart brand new door panels/seats. But that's what we do. And it must have gone over with his college friends because we have another 300 series coming in this week to be estimated for the same job in suede.