Like RichardCH said.
Just pull straight up and wiggle side to side a bit and the three plastic hooks will come out of their slots. Once you get it out your being saying DOH!...that was too simple

 

Just started mine. There are three plastic hooks that hold up the seatback stuff vertically at the very top of the seatback. They need to come up and over and the whole thing will just fold down.

My seat does not have the two? plastic pieces in the lumbar section in the picture. Just a piece of foam. Maybe you have heated seats? This might be a good time to add-in some lumbar support!

The "C" clips are so hard to get at. From what you see can I just snip em? Maybe I'll just go by an upholstery shop and have them do it. It will be much cheaper when you point out that you just want nine clips removed and some padding in the lumbar and that you know and can show what needs to be done.

This looks like a great mod for my sport seats. Thanks!

 

Someone in an earlier post this won't work for supple seats...can someone confirm yeah or neigh and why? Just don't want to spend the time pullling stuff appart for nothing. Thanks

 

I just finished doing this mod. I'll try to answer a few of the previously posted questions, from my recent experience.

This mod works for the "supple leather" seats. I have the "supple leather" seats, and the only difference between these and the "regular" seats is the leather covering. The seat design is otherwise the same.

To unhook the center of the seat back, I put my fingers behind both sides of the cushion near the top (the sides are loose, with the cushion attached at the bottom and the top to the seat back) and pulled the very top part straight up. This action releases the 3 plastic hooks that hook onto a small tranverse metal bar, and the seat back center will then become loose (except for the attachment to the set bottom) and fold down.

The OEM white foam is glued along the edges to a thin grey foam that is attached to the leather cover. I used my hand to separate those two pieces of foam. The thick, dense white foam is pictured in RichardCH's second pic.

The two plastic white things on RichardCH's first pic are the air bladders for the lumbar supports.

I first tried to go completely "foamless", but I definitely felt the seat cushion frame on my back, especially the transverse metal bars that are attached to the leather cover/thin grey foam (there are three of these transverse bars that the metal rings connect to the white plastic frame -- 3 bars at different levels, 3 metal rings for each bar, 9 metal rings total). With the stock cushion thick and dense foam, there are three slits in the foam for these bars to enter, with slots also cut through to connect these bars to the plastic frame -- this holds the frame and bars in the dense foam, and you can't feel them at all in stock configuration. Also, my center seat back did look a bit "saggy" without any foam inside -- possibly due to the "supple leather".

The only foam I could find to purchase was a mattress pad ($15), from which I cut a piece of foam for the upper half of the cushion, using the OEM foam as a pattern, so that I could isolate the upper-most tranverse bar (the one that I could feel the most). I cut a transverse slit in the new foam, put the upper-most tranvserse bar into the slit, sewed the lower two bars to the plastic frame attachments, put the leather cover back onto the plastic frame, and re-hooked the top 3 plastic hooks to the top metal bar on the seat back.

With the new foam (much less dense than the OEM), the seat center no longer looks "saggy", and I can no longer feel the metal bar and seat frame while sitting. I still feel the frame when I turn my body to get out, as that movement puts focal pressure from a small area of the side of my chest onto the frame, but I think I can live with that.

Since I have no foam for the bottom half of the seat back, that's where I feel the most gain in lateral support. It's a definite improvement, but I feel the increased side support is a fairly abrupt transition, since the curve of the lateral bolsters was made for the OEM foam thickness. I've kept the passenger seat stock. I expect the cheap mattress pad foam to flatten/thin out a bit over time.

Just my recent experience with this mod. Thanks to RichardCH for the idea. It seems that many of us are interested in doing this mini-project.

 

Alpha, that's a great writeup.

Did you have to first turn to rings expose the joint, and then seperate them?

How did you pull the clips apart?

 

Ari -- I bent the OEM foam back to partially expose the metal clips. I rotated the clip until the overlapping part was exposed. I inserted a flat tip screwdriver head between the overlapping parts of the metal clip/ring, twisted it to separate the two ends, then took a needle nose plier and pulled/twisted one end until deformed enough to rotate out. Kind of a pain -- 9 clips/rings total. I worked from top to bottom.

 

Hopefully these photos come up. As others have mentioned, this works no problem with supple leather. Just put 200 miles on the modded supple leather seats and they feel much better than the stock configuration.

To remove the metal clip binding the material to the plastic support frame, I used a pair of Park Cable Cutters (bicycle tool to cut bicycle cables). Took about 5 minutes to remove all 18. While putting everything back together, I used zip-ties. A few photos

a) The foam pieces, original on the left, replacement on the right
b) the plastic support frame
c) The seat open
d) Support bar the top 3 tabs from the plastic frame latch to
e) The top 3 tabs that latch to the support bar

 

ok, clearly those photos didn't upload properly...please hold.

 

let's try this again...

 

Freier -- Thanks for the pics. Did you cut slits in the new foam for the transverse bars that are attached to the leather cover to go through? Did you take out both the grey and yellow/white OEM foam pieces together (I separated the white/yellow dense foam from the grey one, as Richard CH said)?

 

Alpha,

On the first pass I didn't cut the slits, and I actually felt the "bar" across the back. So I then cut the slits to pass the bar through. I ran small zip ties through the holes used by the metal clips and attached to the plastic frame. Worked perfectly!

When I had the new foam cut, it's actually two pieces very similar to the factory design. I sprayed a small amount of general adhesive to keep them together.

Cheers,
Scott

 

This is a great thread guys

 

glad you like it guys, about time I did something for you I guess as I for one have benefitted massively from the teamwork ideas and discussions here. I truly love my modified OEM seat as well the more I drive in it

 

Guys, got this done on my sport seats. After lots of back and forth, I hate to say it, but the difference seems very negligible and I can feel something in my back, maybe the cross bars?

I am 210, 6"2 and broad shouldered, with a medium build, so maybe I'm just too big?

Am considering going back to stock.

 

Ari -- The sports seats have much larger side bolsters than the standard seats -- so you already have much better lateral support in stock configuration. How thick was your stock foam? Mine was at least and inch and a half thick lower down. Maybe the sport seats have thinner OEM foam?

If you are not feeling any improvement, plus you are feeling the frame and cross bars, I would go back to stock. Sorry you spent time on this mod and came away empty handed for your troubles. It took me a bit of time to make my seat comfortable for me.