Removing the Front Seat Skins

I'm assuming that you are able to remove the seat from car. On the older C900's the driver's seat can be difficult because of the rear mounting system.

The first thing to do is flip the seat so you can see the bottom. There are numerous clips that hold the skin to the seat bottom. Removing them is pretty simple. This is much easier with a third arm, but it can be done by one person. While pushing on the seat from the top, hold onto a clip with a pair of pliers and pull it up over the wire. It takes some effort, but once you get the hang of it, it goes by fast. After removing all of the clips, the bottom skin will slip right off.

 

 

Now for the hard part!
To remove the top skin without damaging it is a delicate procedure, but I think I have found how Saab did it.
The first thing to do is unzip the bottom and pull on the brass clips that hold the skin down. I found that removing the reclining knob made it a little easier.

Remove the release knob and trim plate if your seat has this.

The same clips that were on the bottom section are on the top section, however the access is not as easy. You still need to pull on the clip with one hand and push on the seat with the other. The key is to remove all but the two very top clips, otherwise you will rip the skin away from the seat and you will need to sew it back on again! There should be two rows of 3 clips. You will know if you got them all if you gently put your arm up the front of the seat and pull it away from the cushion. If there is resistance, then there is probably a clip there.

While pulling the skin up, there are two black straps that need to be released.

 

Once you get everything released, you can pull the skin up to the halfway point. This is not as easy as it sounds, as the skin is tight and the wire bars do not allow the front to bend that much. The easiest way to do this is to turn the skin inside out as you pull it up to the middle point.
There are 4 hog rings holding the back to the seat. You need to pull the skin up to this point.

 

Almost done, now you can remove the last two clips. On my seat there were two slits to access the clips.

Now to remove the headrest. I've heard different ways to remove it, so I believe it may vary between years.
On mine, there was one screw in the front which was access through a slit in the cushion and a tab with needed to be pushed in. The headrest should pull out once this is done.

 

Now, pull off the rest of the skin and your done!

Installing the new skin is really just a matter of doing everything in reverse. If you buy the special hog ring pliers with some new hog rings, installation is even easier!
You can buy them www.eastwood.com.

Removing the Rear Seat Skins

The rear seat skin is two times harder to remove than the front seats. The clips are not as easy to remove and there are a ton of staples that need to by pryed up.

Saying that, I would recommend starting with the bottom section of the seat. It is much easier than the top half and will introduce the steps needed to tackle the top.

Remove the black trim piece that is covering some of the staples are carefully remove all of the staples.
Once this is done you can start pulling back the skin so you can get to the next challenge.

 

You are almost done, but now for the hard part!

You will notice that there are strings that hold the seat to the board. Now look at the base and you'll see that the string is mounted to a small hook. You need to carefully pry the string out of the hook! HA!

This takes some practice and lots of patients. The key is to give the string some slack by pushing down on the seat and then slip it out of the hook. I found that resting a knee on the cusion while bending over with a screwdriver was the only method of doing this. Perhaps a good 25 pound barbell or some other weight would have worked better, but I didn't think of that until now!

Remove one row at a time and then pull the entire skin off to gain access to the next row. Repeat this for all three rows, and then pull the skin off.

 

The hardest step is last. There are tons of those damn string clips on the top section and it is not as easy to get a screwdriver on them!

There is a lot to do before getting to that, so here we go!

Start by removing the two small clips at the top of the seat. A small screwdriver will pull them up.

Then remove the two headrest mounts.

Now flip the seat over and remove the armrest if your car has one. There are only 4-10mm bolts and it slides right off.

 

Now for the fun part.

Remove all of the staples in the armrest section. There are probably a hundred just in this little area.

Now, flip the seat over and remove the two black trim pieces covering more staples. Remove all of those as well.

Pull on the bottom of the skin and it will slip out of it's groove.

 

 

Remove the two plastic washers on the seat mount. I'm not sure how to do this without breaking them. You cannot use pliers as this breaks them very fast. My only guess is to somehow twist and pull them off. My recommendation is to just buy two more from the dealer! (94-89-485)

Now remove the release knob. This is done by pushing the pin through and the arm just comes off. You will notice a clip holding the skin down, pull on the clip and free the skin.

 

It's time for a break, because the hard part is coming up!

Remove the 2 hogrings on each side that are holding the sides down.

Once you have the skin pulled up as much as it will go, you will see the strings holding down the skin to the board. The key is to lay the seat so the skin is facing up, and then kneel on the seat while bending over and use a scredriver to release the string from the hook.
A good light is a must and a helper would be very appreciated!

 

Once all of the strings are released, the skin will come right off of the seat.

The last thing to do is to pull the entire skin out of the top groove and then go grab a beer!

I never reinstalled this skin so I'm not sure how easy or hard it is. If you do it let me know how it goes!

/ saab / Fix_My_Saab_Backup / Saab_900 / Seatskin_Removal

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