I took advantage of the Pick-n-Pull sale this weekend and picked a few parts (in the pouring rain, I might add), including the passenger seat out of a car that also had blue cloth upholstery. I figured that the driver and passenger sides would be interchangeable as far as the frame & foam are concerned, and of course passenger seats are used about 10% as much as driver's seats so it would be in much better shape. I figured right.

It took me a while to get the two seats (my old driver's seat and the donor passenger seat) apart and get the upholstery and hardware off, but it wasn't too hard to figure out. Now that I've done it once it would be a breeze to do again if needed. I used the entire seat bottom from the donor seat without taking it apart. I washed the seat bottom upholstery up a little bit with some soapy water and a brush.

As far as the difference between driver and passenger seats are concerned, I had to swap out the hinges from my old seat so that the adjustment knob would be the correct (left) side. And of course I had to switch the lumbar adjustment hardware around so that knob would also be on the left side. In all cases, the donor seat's hardware seemed in better condition than my old seat, so I used as much as I could from it.

There was a subframe underneath my old driver's side seat bottom that allowed for different height adjustments using two levers. The donor seat didn't have it, and it looked like it wasn't completely necessary, but I took it off and put it on the donor seat just to make everything the same.

As it turns out, the only other part that I couldn't use out of the donor seat was the upholstery for the seat back. I suppose I could have even used that but I didn't want to see a hole where the passenger side lumbar adjustment knob was. If I were to get really creative I supposed I could have ripped the seams off of that panel of vinyl and had somebody with the right sewing machine sew just that skinny vinyl panel from my old seat onto the new. This would have enabled me to use the donor's seat back upholstery, which is in much better condition than the old seat. But I didn't think of it in time, and I can always do it later.

As it was, I removed my old seat back upholstery, took the cinch wires out of it, and threw it in the washing machine as has been suggested on this board (I also washed the donor passenger side seat back upholstery so I'd have a spare in good condition). I put the wires back in along the edges of the upholstery (including the part in the middle of the back that pulls it in so it doesn't sag out in the middle) and reinstalled it, using hog rings and hog ring pliers to restore the factory upholstery job (yes I know some have suggested plastic ties, which would work perfectly well, but hog rings are cheaper and a little easier to work with).

I'm not giving step-by-step instructions here, because there are posts with pictures that show you much better than I can. I just wanted to encourage anyone with an old sagging driver's seat to make this repair from a donor passenger seat. It's definitely worth the couple hours it took and the $20 it cost at PNP for the donor seat. I'll save that much every week I won't have to go to the chiropractor's office now that my spine isn't bent out of shape when I drive!

Here's a good test to see if your driver's seat is shot: sit in your passenger seat and see if it feels substantially more comfortable than your driver's seat. If so, you could probably use a driver's seat rebuild of some sort.