98 Silverado upholstery
 

Good morning! I'm new here but have poked around a bit and hope to get some advice and/or encouragement. I drive my husband's 1998 Chevy Silverado extended cab (with the 60/40 split front seats), and love this truck. He bought it the same weekend we met, so it has sentimental value to me, lol. The leather seats are in pretty bad shape, and I want to see what I can do to fix them up. I am an intrepid DIYer and unafraid to try things that are considered 'hard' (or 'hard for a woman', lol). I have an industrial sewing machine (Sailrite) that handles multiple thicknesses of leather and vinyl as well as years of sewing experience (from leather rodeo queen dresses to slipcovers and lots in between). I have reupholstered a few pieced of furniture - dining room chairs, a wing back chair, and I'm currently working on a channel back chair. With that said, I would like to have the seats look/feel good, but I'm not restoring the whole vehicle to pristine condition (it's definitely a farm truck). I would prefer a cloth type fabric versus leather/vinyl (don't like sticking to the seat in the Texas summers) I am on a pretty tight budget, so need to DIY as much as possible. Is it worth it to consider starting from scratch or better to buy one of the upholstery kits (prices seem to be in the $700 range which is more than I'd like to spend)? I am open to all advice and suggestions - and have no ego invested, so if you think I'm stupid to consider doing this, you won't hurt my feelings lol.

Re: 98 Silverado upholstery
 

I just saw an episode of Trucks on the Spike TV channel, one of the guys just redid a seat out of an old Cadillac, he used the old cover as a pattern for the new cover. Just pulled it off, then cut the threads apart at the seams and used each piece as a pattern for the new cover.
Here is that episode.

http://www.powernationtv.com/episode/TT2016-22/ram-jam

Re: 98 Silverado upholstery
 

Thanks for the link to the show - that's kind of what I thought to do, use the old upholstery as the pattern. I like how that tuck and roll turned out, I may have to think of doing something fancy like that too :-)

Re: 98 Silverado upholstery
 

Might actually be cheaper to buy good condition used fabric seats vs the material for recovering what you have. I've bought seats really cheap for cars at our dealership to get a part out of them. Worth looking in to.

Re: 98 Silverado upholstery
 

I second looking for a used seat.

I picked up a cloth 60/40 tan seat that was in great shape out of a 95 pickup for $60. I put it in my 83 GMC

Re: 98 Silverado upholstery
 

http://www.saddleman.com/fabric-selection / Canvas Seat Covers / Camouflage Seat Covers / Saddle Blanket Seat Covers / and it goes on and on ??/ From $ 144.99 and up/ :mm:RowFree ShippingAdd to Cart

Re: 98 Silverado upholstery
 

I seen an old truck once that had the seats upholstered in denim, it was actually pretty cool.

Re: 98 Silverado upholstery
 

Well rather than sew my own, I bought matching replacement seat upholstery and started work this weekend. The hardest part was getting the floor bolts loosened up, so I've only finished the passenger side. The seat backs weren't torn, just filthy, so I'm only recovering the seats. I've got pictures of the before and after - I think the color is as close to exact as I could hope for, next weekend I hope to get the drivers side done. While the seats were out, I took the opportunity to clean the carpet. It's amazing how much dirt (and who knows what else, ewwww) accumulated in 18 years of hauling sweaty kids (and husband, lol) to/from sports as well as dogs. Hopefully the image links work :-)

Before: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mpbren...posted-public/

After: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mpbren...posted-public/

Re: 98 Silverado upholstery
 

Looks good! Where did you buy the replacement upholstery?

Re: 98 Silverado upholstery
 

That looks great. Will you share where you got the replacement leather?

Re: 98 Silverado upholstery
 

Thanks - I'm very pleased with how it turned out - especially since I've never attempted anything like this before. I purchased the replacement leather seats from US Auto Nation. I googled until my eyes were glazed over and thought their price was reasonable compared to purchasing leather hides and making them from scratch. They don't seem to have a website, I found them on ebay, but didn't order from there - I called directly. With tax and shipping, the drivers and passenger seats were right at $300. I thought I'd replace the entire seat upholstery with something more fabric-like, but the seat backs cleaned up so nice I decided to match the leather.