Trust me… If I can do it with nothing other than a bunch of pictures of foam in boxes then anyone can.. especially a guy who has rebuilt an Rh32 transmission…
Trust me… If I can do it with nothing other than a bunch of pictures of foam in boxes then anyone can.. especially a guy who has rebuilt multiple Rh32 transmission…
There is a bag of them included in the bag with the seat foam.
Does anyone know what size the hog rings are? I would like to make sure I have some on hand before I start
It’s not that difficult, the 2nd time… for me, the the first time was figuring out how they came apart and the easiest way to put them back together… I got a cheap set of hog ring pliers from Amazon… don’t worry about the rings, the ones that the seats come with are better… on the back corner, you will find a zipper and the end will be tucked inside the seat, pull the zipper and out and attach a zip tie to the zipper part to help you pull it down. Your favorite penetrating oil may be needed… there are 2 13mm bolts on the lever side of the seat back and 1 hex bolt on the opposing side, remove them and remove the back from the seat bottom…. At this point you have just the seat bottom on front of you…. Flip the seat bottom upside down and you will find the upholstery is connected to the seat frame by two plastic strips… I used to screwdriver to get them started off the frame and then it’s just a matter of peeling the cover off the pad… You should find 6 hog ring staples holding the fabric to the pad, cut the rings, and you should find two or three holding the pad to the frame in the back, cut them… At this point, you should be able to remove the pad from the seat frame… Put back together in reverse order and you’re done!.. Well worth the effort, I didn’t realize how bad mine were until I put the new ones on, I sit probably 2 inches higher than I did, I’m not leaning toward the door and I don’t feel like I’m bottoming out when I hit a bump…
* easiest way I found to hook the two plastic strips back to the frame was too grab a handful of material below the strip and pul over the frame….
It's been mentioned here by several people that the new foam is firmer and you will probably sit one or two inches higher. I have new bushings under the seat frames that are 11/2 inch taller than stock to allow me sit higher. Should I remove them while installing the foams or do you think it'll be fine with firmer/possibly higher foam. I don't want to have my bald head to catch all the bugs from outside with top down! I'm 5'7".
I don't think my foams were that deterioted either other than outside lower edge. I like sitting high in my cars. I think I'll do one side and test it. I can always swap the bushings later easily. I'll do the passenger side first since my wife is shorter.I think it depends on how worn out your foam is. I just finished replacing my drivers side. I had recently refreshed my seats and used the old steam cleaner trick to plump the foam back up. It was in decent shape but had the typical tear on the outside lower edge. I had glued and reinforced it but figured new foam would be a better long term solution. The new seat foam is a firmer but I don't feel like I sit that much higher. I did notice that the 97-02 foam design looks a lot thicker than the 03-06. Perhaps it is more noticeable on the earlier years. It actually has me wondering if the foam was part of what Jeep changed to lower the seating position in the later years.
A picture is worth a thousand words… or something like that.
Here’s a breakdown with some photographs on removing it:
Quick Tip: you might have to slide the seat forward or back to have a better angle to reach some of the plastic clips.
Tools used to remove the seat:
13mm socket
T50 bit socket
Ratchet
13mm ratcheting wrench
The sockets and ratchet were used to remove the two bolts behind the seat while the ratcheting wrench was used to remove the two bolts to the front seat.
*Might need to use penetrating fluid pending how difficult the bolts are.
Tools used to remove the cover/seat foam:
Cutting Pliers
90* Pick
Once the seat is off you’ll remove the plastic insert at the front of the seat. I grabbed a handful of the material to the base of the seat and pulled towards the plastic insert and using the 90* pick pulled the plastic insert off.
View attachment 513561
View attachment 513562
View attachment 513563
Using the same method, locate the plastic inserts on each side of the seat inbetween the seat base and foam seat:
View attachment 513571
View attachment 513573
View attachment 513574
View attachment 513575
At this point you can pull the cover starting at the front up and cut the hog rings 2 at a time as you move your way to the back. You’ll find 3 hog rings on each side 6 total all marked in red arrows. You’ll notice the hog rings are wrapped around a long wire that’s attached to the seat cover giving the cover a tight fit to the foam seat, keep this in mind when it comes time for the installation of the new hog rings with foam seat.
The blue arrow indicated a strip of Velcro that’s attached to the seat base. Carefully remove the felt from the seat against the Velcro.
View attachment 513576
View attachment 513577
View attachment 513578
While working the seat cover back you’ll have to work around the seat belt and lever. I ended up removing the plastic inserts found at each towards the back of the seat (only took photos of one side):
View attachment 513579
View attachment 513580
Finally there’s the large plastic insert found at the back which likely took me the longest trying to reach it with the 90* pick through the seat base and again pulling the material towards the insert:
View attachment 513581
View attachment 513582
At this point the foam seat should be able to be easily removed:
View attachment 513583
Now you would replace it with the new foam seat and put it back together in reverse order with the following tools:
Hog Ring Tool (or long flat nose pliers)
Hog Rings
The only difference is you would run the hog rings through the seat foam and wire attached to the cover and pinch the hog ring using a hog ring tool (or long flat nose pliers).
I would give directions of the installation if it wasn’t for the fact that I thought the large package summit sent contained the seat foam, but instead was the hog ring tool…
View attachment 513572
When you get done you should finish this and post(submit?) it for the how to section. Apparently its confusing for some people
In case anyone is interested, I weighed the Summit late model (2003-2006) seat base foam with my refrigerant scale (pretty accurate scale). Results:
SUM-RP20034-LH (Driver) - 2.88 lb
SUM-RP20034-RH (Passenger) - 2.68 lb
I don't plan to replace mine immediately, so I don't have the OEM weight to compare, yet.
A picture is worth a thousand words… or something like that.
Here’s a breakdown with some photographs on removing it:
Quick Tip: you might have to slide the seat forward or back to have a better angle to reach some of the plastic inserts.
Tools used to remove the seat:
13mm socket
T50 bit socket
Ratchet
13mm ratcheting wrench
The sockets and ratchet were used to remove the two bolts behind the seat while the ratcheting wrench was used to remove the two bolts to the front seat.
*Might need to use penetrating fluid pending how difficult the bolts are.
Tools used to remove the cover/foam seat:
Cutting Pliers
90* Pick
Once the seat is off you’ll remove the plastic insert at the front of the seat. I grabbed a handful of the material to the base of the seat and pulled towards the plastic insert and using the 90* pick pulled the plastic insert off.
View attachment 513561
View attachment 513562
View attachment 513563
Using the same method, locate the plastic inserts on each side of the seat inbetween the seat base and foam seat:
View attachment 513571
View attachment 513573
View attachment 513574
View attachment 513575
At this point you can pull the cover starting at the front up and cut the hog rings 2 at a time as you move your way to the back. You’ll find 3 hog rings on each side 6 total all marked in red arrows. You’ll notice the hog rings are wrapped around a long wire that’s attached to the seat cover giving the cover a tight fit to the foam seat, keep this in mind when it comes time for the installation of the new hog rings with foam seat.
The blue arrow indicated a strip of Velcro that’s attached to the seat base. Carefully remove the felt from the seat against the Velcro.
View attachment 513576
View attachment 513577
View attachment 513578
While working the seat cover back you’ll have to work around the seat belt and lever. I ended up removing the plastic inserts found at each side towards the back of the seat (only took photos of one side):
View attachment 513579
View attachment 513580
Finally there’s the large plastic insert found at the back which likely took me the longest trying to reach it with the 90* pick through the seat base and again pulling the material towards the plastic insert:
View attachment 513581
View attachment 513582
At this point the foam seat should be able to be easily removed:
View attachment 513583
Now you would replace it with the new foam seat and put it back together in reverse order with the following tools:
Hog Ring Tool (or long flat nose pliers)
Hog Rings
The only difference is you would run the hog rings through the seat foam and wire attached to the cover and pinch the hog ring using a hog ring tool (or long flat nose pliers).
I would give directions of the installation if it wasn’t for the fact that I thought the large package summit sent contained the seat foam, but instead was the hog ring tool…
View attachment 513572
Just a couple of thoughts for those doing this work.
1 - Perfect time to install seat heaters, you are doing the work anyway.
2 - Perfect time to clean your seat covers, I ran mine through the washer, and they came out great.