[OneMoreTime]

I have a set of seats from a van that I woudl like to use on my project..they do need to be redone..

They do not have headrests and I would like to add headrests to them..any one done this?? I have no objections to removing all the old covers and such..they also have the armrests which are going to go any way..

this is the old they are here in the barn and making these ones work to me would be better than chasing all over looking for different seats

some ideas would be great..

Thanks Guys

OMT

[Max Keith]

Until you get the old fabric and the foam padding removed it is hard to say what kind of headrest setup could be used on it. Also knowing what year and what kind of vehicle they came out of will help.
If the back frame is at least 2 inches deep, you may be able to cut the single post head rest unit out of a conventional junk seat and braze it into your seat. I have done this a couple times. Its a little time consuming but it works.
What I did was, take the back frame off of the junk seat, and using a sabre or saws all saw, cut the reinforced slotted area out of the old seat. Carefully measure where you cut, how much etc. Remove the adjusting mechenism, along with its obvious support brackets and then intsall them into the back frame of your seat.
There are a wide veriety of headrest setups out there and you may want to look around at the various ones to see what will compliment your interior, and more importantly, come closer to matching the framework in your seat so parts from the junk one are more easily adaptable to your preferred seat. On the headrest adjustment assembly, there usually is a spring loaded button that comes up trough the blade the head rest mounts on, that prevents it from coming all the way out. You will need to depress that button or release whatever type of retainer it uses, to remove the head rest from the frame. As a general rule, reinstalling the head rest only requires sliding the blade back down in the slot.
Other things to keep in mind. Quite often, there will be a trim ring of one kind or another that goes around the opening of the headrest slot. You will want to hang on to that as it will prevent the fabric from wanting to distort or tear, around the previous mentioned slot. If there is no trim ring or "gasket" of sorts, you might want to consider sewing up a piece of welt cord inside a strip of the fabric you are using on the seats, and sew it to around the opening. Not only will this make it look better but will reinforce the slot as well.