I bought a set of very good condition black leather 940 seats off CraigsList.

The driver seat is powered, which I do not have in my 1990 740 and, frankly, do not want. However, the manual slider is jammed up really badly, so I have to fix that.

Frame-wise, both passenger seats are in great shape, so the new one will bolt right in and the old one will become a partial donor for the new driver seat I am cobbling together.

Here is what I am in the middle of doing right now --

• The base of the old passenger seat (ambidextrous, so to speak) will become my new butt holder.
• The old driver seat back (with manual adjustment) will be bolted to the old passenger seat base.
• The seat foam/leather skin from purchased driver seat will be transferred to old passenger seat base.
• The purchased driver seat back has been "skinned" and the rubber removed.
• The broken lumbar support screw pin is being fixed with a simple nut and bolt. (Hope it holds!)
• The leather foam will be fitted to the old, manual seat back.
• The leather skin will be reattached.

The cushion is different, but will fit; it has more hog rings since the leather seats have more hooked seam details than the cloth ones. The hog rings are not all in easily accessible locations so I will used heavy duty zip ties where I have to and hog rings where I can.

What a major PITA, but I will have some very nice front leather seats when this is over. My cloth seats were all shredded and the driver seat back foam was trashed and full of holes. Not crazy about black leather in the Deep South, but I can cope. They look great! I got a new dash pad, too, so the car will be looking very nice.

These seats came from a 940 (as I stated earlier), so the rear seat bench fits, but the seat back does not, sadly.

I am almost positive that the seat back skin patterns are very similar in shape and size when unstitched. The center is very different, though; the 940 armrest is a separate piece. However, I am pretty sure that most of the existing leather can be trimmed to match the shapes of the cloth panels.

If so, I can take them to a local upholsterer to have them stitched together into a new cover that will fit the wire mounts and foam of the 740 seat back. Any missing leather bits can be trimmed from some new leather that more or less matches.

It is a ton of work, but I think I can have very nice OEM leather seat covers for just a few hundred bucks and my labor.

Worth it?

To me - heck, yeah!

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Mama always told me to eschew obfuscation...