2004 Monte SS, leather seats with heat.

Does anyone have experience with putting replacement foam into the seats of our Monte's? The GM replacement foam is a touch pricey. I can get my hands on some very comfortable memory foam and I was curious if I can possibly fashion my own seat out of it. From sliding in and out of the car for 10 years I've basically crushed the foam that's on my left hip when sitting.

My main concers are;
1) Are the heating elements just coils that sit between the foam and the cover, or are they integral to the cover? From my online repair manual it seems they're integral to the cover, which would make replacing the foam easier.
2) And my second main concern is that I don't know what I don't know. It seems like pulling out a seat and removing a cover would be easy, but nothing is ever easy and I'm probably missing something.

Any advice?

 

ive honestly never done anything like this, but i have the general knowledge required to understand what the job takes. From what i can imagine, there will be 3 major problems associated with this project:

1. Memory foam is much less stiff than regular seat foam, as such, getting it to conform and hold the necessary "seat-shape" will take some work.

2. making sure the leather goes back correctly will not be very hard, but it will present a challenge getting the upholstery to stay in correct spot while putting the hog rings on the underside of the seat

3. IF the heating elements are not integral to the leather, some routing problems may occur when reattaching your leather

 

Your heating element should be part of your leather covers. You will have hog rings to open as you are taking cover off. do slowly and take off inside out as you go should help.

 

Your seat heating elements are part of the leather cover skins. You have a couple of wires, one feeding from under the seat to the lower cushion and then one running up and onto the seat back. If the wire connecting the two pieces separates, just splice it back together.

The seats are removed by sliding the track forward, and exposing the only 2 rear mounted bolts holding down the seat (believe 15mm) once those are removed, lift the rear of the seat up and slightly forward while lifting and the front bayonet mounts will pull free from their floor pan slots.

The covers come off pretty simply, think velcro along the sides, and just work them off of the foam. A decent local auto upholstery will have the ability to provide you with replacement foam, I think any memory foam would compress waaay to much and not be to very comfortable.

 

Thanks for the advice guys.

It turns out I'm getting better than regular memory foam. I talked to my friend last night and the excess he can get me is leftover stock they actual sell specifically for car seat cushions, so I got that going for me, which is nice.

Anything special with undoing/re-doing the hog rings?

 

technically you could reuse them if you spent the time to unbend them and pull them out...however it would be easier to just go along and cut them all out and replace with new ones...theyre usually cheap and come in packs of 50 or so...also there are special hog ring pliers, not sure if theyre a requirement or if you can just use some normal pliers?

 

This thread should help with your question----> https://montecarloforum.com/forum/mo...eat-fix-18320/