TMI Products Sports Seat Kit - Saddle Up! Part 2

16. While we were placing our order with NPD, with knew we couldn’t have a great looking set of front buckets and reinstall four-decade-old pitted seat back release knobs. A new set of knobs from NPD includes the chrome backing washers and new retaining screws as well.

17. Moving on to the seat bottom, the upholstery is removed by cutting away the hog rings on the bottom of the seat base frame and then the upholstery is turned inside out to access the hog rings that secure the listing wires on the top side of the seat foam. Once the hog rings are removed, the upholstery and foam can be removed from the seat base frame.

18. Unfortunately, since the driver seat sees the most usage, the burlap base that covers the springs was trashed.

18a .Thankfully, NPD offers a generous burlap kit that has enough material for one bench seat or two buckets. To save on our diminishing pile of hog rings, we used plastic tie wraps through the burlap to secure it to the springs.

19. The new Sport bucket foam simply sits on top of the seat base frame. Position it square to the frame to prepare it for the new Sport upholstery.

20. The new Sport upholstery for the seat base is started by turning the upholstery inside out and securing the horizontal listing wire at the front of the cushion, as seen here.

21. Partially pull the upholstery right side out so that the vertical listing wires can be installed in the upholstery’s listing loops and then secured to the foam as shown.

22. Use a heat gun to give the material some flexibility, and then pull the upholstery down over the foam and seat base frame. Keep the heat source moving to prevent damaging the vinyl. A section of a trash bag or plastic grocery bag over the bolster will help ease the material over.

23. Secure the upholstery with more hog rings. A pair of upholstery pliers will help grab the material safely if you need help getting the material into place.

24. Once the upholstery is fitted, you’ll need to reinstall the seat bumpers and anything else removed earlier. A small pick tool helps to find the screw holes for reinstallation.

25. Reassembling the seat base and seat back and reinstalling the seat tracks wraps up the Sport bucket upgrade for our ’70 Mustang. What a difference compared to the original high back bucket, huh? But we’re not done yet. Since TMI produces door panels for classic Mustangs, we were able to custom order door panels to match.

26. TMI’s door panels are available in a two-tone option, so we had TMI build us a set of door panels in black vinyl with a black suede insert. To trim away the material for the door handle escutcheon, arm rest mounting screws, and so forth you’ll have to cut through multiple layers of vinyl, plastic, and backing material, so take your time and go slow.

27. The new door panels are installed with the OE door panel clips (or new ones if yours are weak or missing) and will give our High School Hauler’s doors a wonderful two-tone black vinyl and suede look to match the rest of the interior.

28. Our door panel upper finish panel (freshly painted in our first half of our interior story) is installed with new screws, a new door lock knob trim, and door lock knob.

29. New armrests in black, along with new door handles, door handle escutcheons, and window cranks finish off the upgrades to our doors.