Removing and Cleaning the Car Seats
Unlock your front seats by unscrewing the bolts in the floor. Move your front seats forward all the way and look for 2 bolts at the end of each seat’s rails. Unscrew these bolts with a hex or socket wrench depending on your model. Then, move the seats all the way back and unscrew the 2 bolts on the front of each set of rails. The location of the bolts may be different depending on your vehicle’s specific make and model. This process is generally the same for any vehicle manufactured after 1970. You cannot adequately paint or dye your seats without removing the seats from the vehicle.
Disconnect the wires underneath the front seats and take them out. Disconnect your car’s battery. Gently lift the seat up and disconnect any electrical wires by sliding them out of their terminals. Slide each seat out of the door to remove it in one piece. On older cars, there may only be 2-3 wires plugged into each seat. However, if you see more than a few easily-identifiable wires, take a photo of the wires before removing them so you have a reference when it comes time to plug them back in.
Take out your back seat cushions by unscrewing their bolts. Look near the bottom cushion of each seat in the back, near the lip where the seat meets the frame of the car. There is 1 bolt under the driver’s side and 1 bolt under the passenger’s side. Use a hex wrench or socket wrench to unscrew these bolts. To remove the backs, look under the bottom of the back for 2 bolts and the top of the seat for 2-4 bolts. Use the same tool to remove these pieces and slide the backs out. You may need to slide some carpet around to find the bolts under the bottom of the seats. Back seats have a little more variation than front seats when it comes to how they’re attached to the vehicle. You may need to consult your owner’s manual or look online to find the location of these bolts.
Take off the plastic components or cover them with masking tape. If your seats have any handles, toggles, or covers, do your best to identify the screws or fasteners holding them in place. Unscrew or remove any plastic components that you can. If a piece can’t be removed, simply cover it with layers of masking tape to keep paint or dye from covering it when you paint your seats. These plastic components differ radically from vehicle to vehicle. However, many of them are not designed to be taken off. Do not use any force to remove these components. If you break them, you may need to replace the entire seat.
Vacuum and brush fabric seats to remove any debris and dust. Before you can paint a fabric seat, you have to clean it to ensure that no debris gets trapped in your paint. To do this, brush each portion of the seat with a soft-bristled brush. Brush firmly to knock up any dirt, food crumbs, or dust. Then, vacuum your seats with a hose attachment designed for fabric. Repeat this process 2-3 times to thoroughly clean your seats.Tip: It is exceptionally important that you clean your seats thoroughly, multiple times. The paint job will not come out clean if you don’t.
Scrub and scuff leather seats with a stiff brush or foam pad. To clean leather seats, get a leather cleaning agent and a stiff brush. Wet the brush and scrub each portion of your seats aggressively. For a deeper clean, attach a foam pad to a drill and dip it in the cleaning agent. Then, turn the drill on and rub the foam pad against the leather to clean it. Let your leather air dry after doing this. It’s okay to be extremely rough with your leather seats, so long as there are no tears or rips in the fabric. If there is, fix the tear with a leather repair kit or get it professionally reupholstered. It’s okay if you see some of the old leather finish wearing away. That just means that your seat is going to be extremely clean.
Spray-Painting Fabric Seats
Buy a spray dye designed for fabric and vinyl to paint your fabric seats. There are no special paints designed for painting fabric car seats, but spray paint designed for vinyl and fabric works quite well. Pick some up at your local craft store or buy it online. Choose your color based on your personal preference and the color of your vehicle’s paint job. The lighter the color you choose, the more layers of paint you’re going to need. If your seats are black or brown though, you’re not realistically going to be able to repaint them yellow, white, or some other light color. You will likely go through 2 cans of paint for each individual seat. This product is literally called “spray dye” most of the time. Don’t be confused though, it’s just a marketing name for spray paint that is designed for fabric and vinyl.
Prop your seat up on a stable surface outside so you can access all sides. If it’s windy outside, wait for another day to paint your seats. Take your seats outside and stand them up on a table, stack of boxes, or some other platform. You can set the seats up next to one another or paint each seat separately.Warning: Don’t do this indoors. You’re going to paint each seat multiple times. Even if you do wear a respirator, the room will reek of paint for months. Alternatively, you can put a drop cloth underneath your seats and paint them on the ground, but it’ll be hard to reach the area around the bottom of your seat. Painting each of your seats at the same time will make it easier to compare the color of each coat of paint. You’ll need to spend more time setting up, though.
Shake your can up and hold it 8–12 inches (20–30 cm) away from the seat. Shake your can for 10-20 seconds until you hear the ball at the bottom rattling. Then, hold the can 8–12 inches (20–30 cm) away from the top of your first seat. If you hold the can too close to the seat, your paint may drip. If you hold the can too far away from the seat, the paint won’t cover the chair evenly.
Spray your way from the top of the seat to the bottom. Press the nozzle down to release the spray and move the can back and forth repeatedly until the color works into the fabric. Work your way down until you cover the entire chair, pausing and shaking the can periodically when it starts to splatter. Inspect each side of the chair when you’re done to ensure you didn’t miss any areas with your spray dye. Repeat this process for each seat. You don’t need to paint the back side of the back seats if they’re hidden when they’re inside of your vehicle. You can wear a respirator and gloves if you’d like, but the dye isn’t toxic and it’s pretty easy to wash off of skin. Paint the front and back of each seat. You can either walk your way around the seat as you paint, or do each side individually.
Wait 10-20 minutes to give your first coat time to dry. Like other paints, vinyl and fabric spray dye needs time to dry. Wait 10-20 minutes after your first coat to give the paint time to settle. For every coat that you add, wait 10-20 minutes.
Apply multiple coats until you reach your desired color. Inspect the color after the first coat. If you like it, great! If it looks a little off or it’s not as dark as you want, repeat this process. Continue adding layers of paint until you achieve the color and look that you had in mind. In some cases, it may take up to 10 coats to achieve the right color. You don’t need to seal the paint or anything. Just give the seats 24 hours to settle after the last coat before reinstalling them.
Dyeing Leather Seats
Use an airbrush and leather dye to paint your car seats. To paint your leather seats, buy or rent a pressurized airbrush gun. Purchase a leather dye based on the color you want to paint your seats, and pick up a primer to ensure that the paint fully adheres to the fabric. You can purchase an airbrush and leather dye paints at a custom auto supply shop or online.Warning: You need to wear a respirator while working with an airbrush gun. You can do this indoors, but open all of the windows or the door to your garage while working. You’ll also need an air compressor if your airbrush gun doesn’t come with one.
Connect a bottle of primer to the airbrush and set it to the lowest pressure. Use a funnel to pour your primer into the airbrush’s storage bottle. Once it’s full, twist the bottle into the opening under the nozzle of the spray gun to secure it. Attach the air hose on the compressor to the spray gun and set the compressor to the lowest air pressure setting available. Some primers need to be thinned out with a paint thinner before you apply them. Read the instructions printed on the label of the primer to determine if you need to do this.
Inspect the seams and crumpled areas on each seat. Before you spray the larger surfaces of your seat, you’ll fill in the seams to ensure that the dye covers the hard-to-reach areas. Inspect the cushion to find the seams where different layers of fabric are sewn together. Identify any scrunched up or folded areas that need to be spread out as well. A good way of thinking about this is to imagine how rooms are professionally painted—the 2–3 inches (5.1–7.6 cm) around the top, bottom, and corner edges are painted with a brush first before the wall is rolled. This ensures that the hard-to-reach areas are painted first. This is basically the same thing.
Spray all of the seams carefully to fill in hard-to-reach areas. Set your airbrush’s nozzle to the thinnest setting. Start at the top of your headrest. Pull the trigger on your airbrush gun and outline every seam where 2 layers of fabric meet. Hold the nozzle 2–3 inches (5.1–7.6 cm) away from the surface and cover each seam 3-4 times to ensure that you fill in every hard-to-reach area. Work your way down by outlining each seam you find in primer. Repeat this process for each of your seats. If there are any ripples or crumpled up portions of the fabric, spread them out with your nondominant hand and spray these areas as well.
Cover the larger surfaces using a wider nozzle setting. Once all of the seams are covered, set your airbrush to the widest nozzle setting. Starting at the top, spray your seat by moving the spray gun back and forth horizontally. Cover each area 3-4 times before moving down to the next area. Continue spraying the seat until you cover every seat. You can use a bigger airbrush gun if you want to do this more quickly. A larger gun will have a wider coverage area.
Repeat this process 2-3 times to reach a uniform coat. Wait 20-30 minutes for the first coat of primer to dry. Then, repeat the entire process for each seat. Outline the seams before covering the larger surfaces of each seat. Repeat this process another 1-2 times until the color of your primer is uniform and you don’t see any gaps in the color. So long as the entire seat is a solid white, you can stop priming your seat. If your leather is really old and brightly colored, you may need to do this a total of 4-5 times. Wait 20-30 minutes between each coat to give the primer time to dry.
Replace the airbrush bottle with your chosen dye color. Once your seats are primed, swap your airbrush’s dye container with a fresh bottle filled with your chosen color. Use a funnel to pour the dye and fill your bottle up. Attach it to the bottom of the gun at the same location where you attached the primer. Keep the air compressor at the lowest pressure setting.
Use the same process to cover the seams and larger areas. Apply your dye the same way that you applied your primer. Start out by using a thin nozzle setting to paint the seams and work your way down. Then, switch to a wider nozzle setting and spray back and forth in horizontal strokes until you cover the entire seat. Repeat this process for every single seat.
Apply 2-3 coats of your dye until you reach a uniform color. Wait 20-30 minutes for the first coat of dye to dry. Then, apply 2-3 additional coats based on the hue and texture that you’re trying to achieve, waiting between each coat. Once you’ve completely covered your seats and you’re happy with the uniformity of the color, you’re done! Wait 24 hours before handling your seats and putting them back into your vehicle.
Reassembling Your Seats
Put every plastic component back where it belongs. Remove the masking tape on the plastic components that you taped over. Then, reattach every plastic handle, cover, and knob that you originally removed from each seat using the same hardware and tools that you used the first time.
Reposition your front seats and reconnect the wires underneath. If you had a really complicated wire setup underneath your seats, pull up the photos that you took to reference them. Slide your seats in through you’re vehicle’s doors and hold them over their slots. Reinsert every wire that you removed to take the seat out and insert the wire into the corresponding terminal. Do this for both of your front seats.Warning: Double-check your wires and connections. You can short a wire or burn through your battery if you fail to properly connect your wires. Make sure that your battery is disconnected while you do this.
Reattach the bolts that hold the seats in place to finish. Put each bolt back into the slot that you removed it from. Use your hex or socket wrench to tighten the 4 bolts under your front seats. Do the same for the 4-8 bolts that keep your back seats in place. Once your bolts are reattached, you’re ready to take your new seats out for a drive! Keep your car out of the sun for the next 2-3 months if you can. Early exposure to the sun can cause the color of your paint job fade over time
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