RussB

My car: 1988 5000CSTQ with a slightly tatty Marine Blue leather driver's seat cushion

I've located a junked 87 5000CSTQ with power leather seats the same color (Marine Blue) as mine. I think that the only difference is that my power leather seats are unheated and the seats in the junked 87 are heated.

I THINK that what I'd like to do is end up with a mint driver's side seat cushion.

A quick exam seems to reveal that the seat cushions are symmetrical and that I'd have a prayer of fitting the passenger seat cushion from the junked 87 5000CSTQ to my 88 5000CSTQ's driver seat . . . but I'm not sure. (The junked car's driver's seat is in no better condition than mine.)

(I did this years ago to my 84 5000S with cloth upholstery -- but it required the services of a skilled local interior upholsterer.)

Can I get there from here?

"Double Vision"

Mine too has the heated seat option, but I opted for a mint seat bottom and outside bolster, instead of a working heated seat, for the moment. We took the skin off of a ps seat bottom and put it on the ds seat bottom that also had been stripped. Then took the complete seat back off of the same ps seat and installed it on the ds seat. The only differences were I lost the lumbar dial, and the center armrest. Both of which have not bothered me being gone. I have taken one round trip of approx. 8 hours each way with no discomfort. It was also a sport seat. I have two armrests that are mint, but in order to use one of them I would have had to strip the skin off like the bottom cushion- and on first inspection by actually opening the up the old ds seat back, well lets say it is just a mess in there and if you are not one that would get frustrated easily it would be a great project! lol Maybe at some point I would have an upholstery shop strip the leather for me, just to get the armrest back cuz the attachment is welded to the seat itself inside Otherwise I am very happy with the way it looks! And the very firm bolster on the left side is very nice IMO. The seat swap was also from the same model year. Barbie

audijim113

I understand the problem it would be to swap the seat back, but can you clarify something about your swap?

You say you, "took the skin off". Does that mean you didn't swap the foam rubber? My proble isn't so much the cover (happens to be cloth) but the fact that there is too much gravity under my ***.

The seat is smooshed way down. There is a good passenger side available at a yard locally and if I could swap it would look (and feel) way better.

"Double Vision"

And it is glued to the frame of sorts. I suppose it could be reglued, it just wasn't needed in my case. HTH!

RussB

On my 84 5000S, with manual cloth seats, I had a similar problem. I bought a pair of similar seats from a junkyard, and had a local upholsterer use the foam and cloth from the pristine passenger seat of the junked car to restore my driver's seat. He had to do some stitching to make the passenger side seat cloth fit the driver's side.

TonyOldSchool

was the best you could do. On mine, the comfy type seat's stitches were all rotted out, so I found a good set of "sport" seats in the U-Pull It. But the ds side had a slight rip, probably from a screw driver in the back pocket! A real pain, like described above, but I dismantled the sport seats, hand stitched the rip (small stitches) and liberally neatsfooted (oiled) the inside of the leather, let it soak in overnite and did it again. Seems that the coating on the outside does not allow the oil to soak in. I then switched cushions and leather from ds to ps. All I remember was it was a long ordeal and I used black tie wraps around the wire reinforced edges instead of those U type nails. Never cared about the seat warmers maybe because the connectors were different and I got lazy. Really, its worth it, since the driver side gets most of the wear.

"Double Vision"

on the right, therefore you need to cut the leather on the left side of the seat to open up an area for the seat controls when the skin goes on the ds seat. I just laid the ps one inside out and traced a pen mark on the leather and cut. And the hole from the ps seat controls will be against the center console and not really seen, but can be felt if your hand fits down there. It was also easy to tighten the 'map pockets' on both seats while doing the swap.(although it was a seperate fix- by taking the back plastic off) Undo the teethed gripper, pull the cord tighter, reclamp and I cut the ends and burned the cord end when done.