As promised I'm back with before/after and install pics.
First of all - this was pretty dang easy. I did the same for our Mazda 3 (first time ever attempting upholstery) and it had WAY more hog rings and nooks/crannies to deal with. The jeep seats are super straight forward and easy peazy by comparison.
The only challenging part was the little "s clip" on the wire that connects the top/bottom of the front seats. I believe this wire is what controls the "full flip forward" function of the seats (the little "hop up" extra extension forward). There's not a lot of slack on it. In hindsight I could have probably cut a zip tie or something to give a little more, but we got it done as is. My wife has small hands so she was able to finagle the thing while I held it for both the taking apart and putting back together. I tried to take some pictures of it for reference.
There were only a total of 24 hog rings (12 each front seat bottom only. NOTE* - had to move over the "wire" from the factory covers into the replacements. They came with the cloth channel for them but not the wire itself. It's basically a length of coat hanger.) The seat back and entire backseat is all Velcro).
I bought WAY too many hog rings (again after my first experience with the Mazda running out half way through). The Jeep TJ is all the heavy duty black plastic Velcro strips. I found it was best to put both hands in and hold the "bottom" of the Velcro strip (poky side) to the foam cushion while lifting the cover up from it. It holds so strong it felt like the strip itself could come unglued from the foam and that seemed like a very bad thing. Once you get the Velcro off the covers just slip off like any other seat cover.
There are two bolts on each front seat holding the top to the bottom on the "controls/lever" side. 1 torx (T45 I believe) and the wire I mentioned on the other side. The back seats had 1 bolt each side. Easy stuff.
Once you get the new covers in place you have to cut holes for a few connection points, rubber feet for rear, and the side levers for front seats.
The rear rubber feet had a big square hole cut in them on the factory covers. I opted to just poke a very small hole for the foot screw only vs. the entire mount. TIP - cut WAY smaller than you think you need - there's a lot of stretch (esp in the leather bits) and you can always go incrementally bigger).
For the front seat handles the factory covers have a large "slit" cut in them. It seems the handle is meant to stay on so you can't just make a hole for the rod. We still opted to make as small a slit as we could and pulled/stretched the leather to get the handle through. The end result came out better than the factory hole to my eyes. It's at least half the size and you can't see it at all (the handle blocks it entirely).
Anyway... you're here for pictures. Here they are. The leather still needs to relax some from being folded up in shipping etc. A few days of sunlight/heat will take care of that.
AWESOME upgrade. So nice in there now. Smells like a new Jeep!
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Front Before
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Front After
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Rear Before
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Rear After
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Front Control side bolts holding top/bottom together
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Front other side torx
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Front hog rings under seat (3 each seat)
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Front hog rings in cushion itself ( 3 sets like this for 9 total each seat)
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Rear seat holes to be cut in new ones (originals pictured - made our holes smaller - not pictured)
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The evil "S hook" - the worst part of the hole project. Still pretty painless.
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Another view of the "S hook"
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Factory rear rubber feet holes
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Our version of the rubber feet holes - only a small hole to thread foot through
That's it! Hope you found it helpful. Happy to be part of the forum! Loving our new to us 1999 TJ.