Front Seat Replacement / Reupholster Suggestions

lparsons

Dirt-Old 20+Year Member
May 24, 2004
198
1
18
Upstate New York
After being stang-less for many years, I picked up a 98 GT convertible this summer. My new car however in spite of being rust free and only at 93k miles could use some help in the interior. The driver's seat has some big splits in the leather and is currently covered by a cheap seat cover. I have searched car-part.com but haven't found much for leather seats in the tan color that I have currently.
My goal is to have a car that looks more or less as it did when it came out - but not a trailer queen by any stretch of the imagination. The seats don't have to be Ford OEM but I don't want anything crazy either, they should at least look like they go with the rear seats.
Suggestions? I also found a site online that sells "custom real leather seat covers" for $350, which might be an option as well. My rear seats are - as often is the case - nearly flawless, so I really only need to replace the fronts.
In a similar vein has anyone ever paid to have their seats reupholstered? How much should that cost? I will be putting the car away for the winter in a couple months, and I have other vehicles that could easily haul the seats somewhere for that to be done.
 
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I reupholstered the driver's seat cushion cover and entire driver's seat foam in my 2K GT...probably should have done the seat back too.

I think I bought the upholstery from these guys...if not, I used their video as a guide.


View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c95-IqUSkqY


And I bought a full TMI seat cushion replacement, available on most of the Mustang supply sites.

Total cost bumped up against $400. Follow the instructions and take your time...worth the effort.
 
I reupholstered the driver's seat cushion cover and entire driver's seat foam in my 2K GT...probably should have done the seat back too.

I think I bought the upholstery from these guys...if not, I used their video as a guide.


View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c95-IqUSkqY


And I bought a full TMI seat cushion replacement, available on most of the Mustang supply sites.

Total cost bumped up against $400. Follow the instructions and take your time...worth the effort.

Thank you for the recommendation! I just looked at www.theseatshop.com and it appears they specialize in trucks and SUVs - indeed you can't even select Mustang for 1998 Ford, it lists only trucks and SUVs from that era. I sent them an email anyways to see if they can do anything for me; if I hear back I'll share their reply here.

Thank you!
 
That's for sure! All in for my setup (saddle leather front seats, with new foam) would be about $1k through them. As is often the case my rear seats are nearly flawless, so I really only need to look at the fronts.
Thank you for finding those! I might try reaching out to some local upholstery shops this winter while I have my 'stang in the garage.
 
Thank you for the recommendation! I just looked at www.theseatshop.com and it appears they specialize in trucks and SUVs - indeed you can't even select Mustang for 1998 Ford, it lists only trucks and SUVs from that era. I sent them an email anyways to see if they can do anything for me; if I hear back I'll share their reply here.

Thank you!

Hmmm, I honestly do not remember where I purchased the seat cover. May have been Richmond...

 
If you want your seats done this winter, better get on the schedule now. At least that’s how the shops operate here. Lots of work,
not enough space, and rarely have employees beyond the owner.

That's for sure! All in for my setup (saddle leather front seats, with new foam) would be about $1k through them. As is often the case my rear seats are nearly flawless, so I really only need to look at the fronts.
Thank you for finding those! I might try reaching out to some local upholstery shops this winter while I have my 'stang in the garage.
 
If you want your seats done this winter, better get on the schedule now. At least that’s how the shops operate here. Lots of work,
not enough space, and rarely have employees beyond the owner.
I think you're exactly right on that. I reached out to one upholstery shop in my area this week. They said they haven't hired their upholstery tech back yet and can't even give me a quote until they have that person. Indeed the reply came from the owner. I expect lots of people like to send in their summer cars (or parts of them) and/or their other summer toys over the winter for upholstery work.
I should just start digging around more on what seats are the easiest to interchange with for the 98. I'm finding limited - and sometimes conflicting - information on the matter. I'm not sure who the best source of information would be.
 
I should just start digging around more on what seats are the easiest to interchange with for the 98. I'm finding limited - and sometimes conflicting - information on the matter. I'm not sure who the best source of information would be.

For the fronts, direct bolt in would be any 94-04 seat. Perhaps you can find a clean set of 99-04 seats with the 6-way power seat track. Fox seats would fit too but i doubt you would want to go "backwards". The 99+ tan is a little different shade than the 94-98 color however.

If you have fab skills, guys have been putting 05+ Mustang seats in SN95's. You'll need to weld brackets.

Honestly, i think you can find a clean set of OEM seats if you keep looking. They tend to be cheap. I made a set of office chairs for the garage out of a set of black leather 99-04 seats i paid $100 for. I have a MINT set of '04 GT black leather seats i tried to sell for $600 and got no takers. I'd likely need to drop to $400ish or so to sell them (however i've decided to keep them for now). OE seats are one of those things that are all over the place. Some guys want top dollow for them, while other guys just want them gone and offer them up cheap.

Here's a set of 05+ seats in an SN95 with brackets made for it
s-l1000.jpg


To be frank, i'd hate to see you spend $1500 or so just to get back to original 98 GT seats when decently clean seats will pop up here and there for $200. For that money, you have other options...
 
For the fronts, direct bolt in would be any 94-04 seat. Perhaps you can find a clean set of 99-04 seats with the 6-way power seat track. Fox seats would fit too but i doubt you would want to go "backwards". The 99+ tan is a little different shade than the 94-98 color however.
Thank you! That is what I was hoping to hear, as adding the 99-04 mustangs to the search certainly improves the chances of finding seats in decent condition.

Do you know if the 99-04 seats wire in directly, or would it require some rewiring? I haven't been able to find much information on if the 6 way seats can be made to work on our SN95 pre-"new-edge" Mustangs.

If you have fab skills, guys have been putting 05+ Mustang seats in SN95's. You'll need to weld brackets.
Unfortunately, no. Tempting to source it out but I suspect at that point I would end up having spent money closer to what a used 05 convertible would have cost me :)

Honestly, i think you can find a clean set of OEM seats if you keep looking. They tend to be cheap. I made a set of office chairs for the garage out of a set of black leather 99-04 seats i paid $100 for. I have a MINT set of '04 GT black leather seats i tried to sell for $600 and got no takers. I'd likely need to drop to $400ish or so to sell them (however i've decided to keep them for now). OE seats are one of those things that are all over the place. Some guys want top dollow for them, while other guys just want them gone and offer them up cheap.

Here's a set of 05+ seats in an SN95 with brackets made for it


To be frank, i'd hate to see you spend $1500 or so just to get back to original 98 GT seats when decently clean seats will pop up here and there for $200. For that money, you have other options...
We're on the same page on this one. I'm not looking to make a 100% original car (not sure that would be possible with what I'm starting with here anyways) and I don't have sufficient admiration for the 98 seats to pay a large amount for them or their re-creation. I just haven't been able to find much for normal looking seats that are listed as direct replacements for SN95 mustangs.
 
Do you know if the 99-04 seats wire in directly, or would it require some rewiring? I haven't been able to find much information on if the 6 way seats can be made to work on our SN95 pre-"new-edge" Mustangs.

I believe the plugs are different, but not 100% sure. The 92-98 seat track is a 2-wire plug.

thr 99+ track is 4-wire as ford bolted the seat belt buckle to the seat track, so they added 2 wires for the belt warning. I don’t think you need this as I believe the seat belt still mounted to the floor in 1999.

it’s just then two power wires for the track and that’s all. When I put my 99-04 seats in my fox, I made an adapter Harness to allow it to be plug and play. You could track down down some harness bits to make your own, or just use a generic 2-wire plug harnessand splice them in

Sea Dog Line - 426880-1 Sea Dog Polarized Connector 2-Wire Plug and Socket Amazon product ASIN B000Y89TDMView: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000Y89TDM/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_RmamFb8XH0JQX

Edit: here’s the harness I made. Right side male plug was clipped off a 99-04 car, left side male plug was clipped off an 87-98 car. I didn’t want to cut any of the factory wiring
EF08B20A-EF7A-4D0B-A4B6-B2FB6DCE5260.jpeg
 
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Last week I found myself driving a 2020 EcoBoost Mustang (the car rental gods were smiling upon me while traveling for work). In a case of "you don't know what you don't have until you have it", I fell completely in love with the seats from that car.
Has anyone fitted the seats from those newest Mustangs into an SN95? I'm not even 100% sure what the year range is for those seats - possibly 2018-2020 - so I haven't been able to source them well just yet. I'm interested in figuring out what I would need to do. I'm also not sure what colors were available for them, which might be an issue. I did find a full set - front and rear - on ebay in leather for $1k which all things considered isn't terrible considering what it would cost to just reupholster my current seats. Cloth is of course even cheaper.
I don't expect this would be trivial, as they are heated and cooled on top of almost certainly having wildly different tracks and motors.
 
Yes, but you'll need to fab the tracks up yourseld. Having a welder and welding experience would be a plus here.

The heating/cooling function would be difficult to make work as it functions off vehicle modules and requires a controller. A company does make an aftermarket ventilated seat retrofit kit with a controller that might be able to be modified to work, but it will require doing some homework. Most of the Ford seat blowers i've seen are the same as this kit, but it would take some electrical exploration to make it work.



If I managed to score a set of 15+ ventilated seats, I was going to try the above kit