1977 343: Restoring seat fabric

Goede dag!

You may remember my thread many years ago ( forum.volvo300club.nl/showthread.php?t=8588 ) of when I imported my 1977 model year 343 from Sittard to where I live in the UK. One of the main things which was wrong with the car was the seat fabric: as you can see it was severely sun damaged in parts, badly faded, and torn away on the front seats especially.

Volvo 343 seats by Siôn Hudson , on Flickr

Volvo 343 seats by Siôn Hudson , on Flickr

Volvo 343 seats by Siôn Hudson , on Flickr

Volvo 343 seats by Siôn Hudson , on Flickr

Volvo 343 seats by Siôn Hudson , on Flickr

I've also made a video about the car here where you can get a better look at how bad the seats actually were.

The seats really let the car down, as people seeing it at shows thought it was ready for the scrapyard. I had been looking for replacement seats for years, but could not find any. However last year, I lived in Hong Kong for a few months and made a friend who taught me how to sew using his sewing machine. That gave me the confidence to perhaps consider tackling the seats on my car, as I did not trust seat trimming companies to use the right fabric or give the car the attention it deserved (a problem I often find when I need professionals to work on my 300s, sadly).

When I returned home to the UK, I contacted several automotive fabric companies, and one of them ( www.martrim.co.uk/ ) was able to send me a sample of fabric which may have matched:

Volvo 343 seats by Siôn Hudson , on Flickr

Volvo 343 seats by Siôn Hudson , on Flickr

I was absolutely amazed that it was definitely the correct fabric! Considering this was essentially a single production year fabric, for a model that at the time barely sold any in the UK! I ordered a roll of 4m, and set about to work.

I tackled the easiest job first, which I decided was the bottom of the rear seat. This has no piping, and only sewing on 3 sides of the fabric, and no special clips to hold it in place.

Here is the cover, removed from the seat foam:

Volvo 343 seats by Siôn Hudson , on Flickr

Whilst taking the seats apart, I worked out how they were initially made, which is in 3 layers which I think are glued together, and then sewn together with the striped of thread which go vertically along the middle of each seat. The layers are the ribbed top nylon fabric, then a very thin layer of orange foam backing, and behind that a sort of nylon muslin to stabilise it. Sadly it seems that the thin foam layer had completely dissolved to a powder, which then meant that the top and bottom layers of the fabric were free to rub against each other, and that is what has caused the top fabric to tear so badly over the years.

You can really see from this picture quite how badly the foam had disintegrated – and this is just the powder from the rear seat bottom as I took it apart from the vinyl:

Volvo 343 seats by Siôn Hudson , on Flickr

I was covered in this dust!

Anyway, the next step was cutting out the new fabric using the old fabric as a template, and you can really see here how much the original fabric had faded compared to the new:

Volvo 343 seats by Siôn Hudson , on Flickr

Once I cut out the fabric, I bonded it to the backing fabric (more detail later when I talk about the front seats) and then sewed the new fabric back onto the vinyl edging. Interestingly, it seems that the factory used brown thread to do the top of the stripes, white for the bottom of the stripes, and grey-brown for the joining of the fabric to the vinyl.

Here is the finished rear seat bottom

Volvo 343 seats by Siôn Hudson , on Flickr

Next job was the rear seat back, which was a lot more difficult because there is plastic piping involved, where the fabric and vinyl join. It also became clear that the old fabric had sagged quite a lot, so when I used it as a template to cut the new fabric, the new fabric was actually ending up about an inch too big on the vertical plane, so I had to undo a lot of my sewing and trim (I had to bear this in mind when doing the front seat bottom too, as it’s also surrounded by vinyl on all sides).

Volvo 343 seats by Siôn Hudson , on Flickr

It was quite a challenge to recreate the shape on this corner, as most of the fabric was missing!

Volvo 343 seats by Siôn Hudson , on Flickr

Another challenge I found when sewing with the piping was that the piping was glued to the vinyl, but of course the glue had failed over the years and so it was hanging loose and causing problems. I worked out that the best way of dealing with it was to do a quick machine baste stitch of the piping onto the vinyl, which kept it from moving about. I used the piping foot of my sewing machine. When sewing the fabric onto the vinyl with the piping, I sometimes had to go back and re-stitch in some areas where I had not got the stitch close enough to the piping, because the thickness of the vinyl meant it was hard for the piping foot to be accurate.

Here is the completed rear seat assembly in place, and you can really see the colour difference compared to the faded old fabric of the front seats!

Volvo 343 seats by Siôn Hudson , on Flickr

Next the front passenger seat out of the car:

Volvo 343 seats by Siôn Hudson , on Flickr

I separated the seat back and bottom with some simple tools, and cut off the hog rings with a small pair of tough snips, which enabled me to get the seat back cover off:

Volvo 343 seats by Siôn Hudson , on Flickr

I was pleased that the foam underneath all the seats was actually in perfect condition.

I unpicked the stitching, separating the vinyl from the fabric:

Volvo 343 seats by Siôn Hudson , on Flickr

To sew the stripes, after attaching the backing fabric (see below), I copied exactly the location of the stripes from the old covers. They are almost exactly 5cm apart, but sometimes they curved a little inwards or outwards at the ends, to follow the curve of the seat. I marked them with a fabric pen, then sewed the lines with brown thread (Gutermann 694) on the visible side and black on the hidden side (it was the thread I had most of!), and then went over the stitching again one more time to bulk it up – I found that stitching only once did not make the stripes visible enough, and the thread used on the original seats was a lot thicker than what my domestic sewing machine could manage.

Volvo 343 seats by Siôn Hudson , on Flickr

Then I had to patiently sew the new fabric assembly onto the vinyl, being careful that the corners lined up perfectly, and the piping was in place

Volvo 343 seats by Siôn Hudson , on Flickr

Next I slipped the new cover onto the frame – the factory left a plastic bag on the headrest to help the process, and so I happily re-used that. There is a metal bar holding the bottom of the headrest vinyl taught, which is fixed through the foam onto the metal springs of the frame.

Volvo 343 seats by Siôn Hudson , on Flickr

Volvo 343 seats by Siôn Hudson , on Flickr

I used cable ties for some of the fixings, as it was too difficult to get some of the new metal hog rings in place:

Volvo 343 seats by Siôn Hudson , on Flickr

The finished seat back:

Volvo 343 seats by Siôn Hudson , on Flickr

Next was the bottom of the passenger seat, which was mainly held in with rings. Here you can see what I used for backing fabric: it is jersey loop material, essentially sweatshirt fabric. I sprayed contact adhesive onto the wrong side of the jersey fabric, waited a couple of minutes for it to become tacky, and then stuck on the brown nylon. I then cut around the brown nylon to give me the completed assembly ready to be sewn together with the stripes.

Volvo 343 seats by Siôn Hudson , on Flickr

This backing, although not what the factory used, gives just the right feeling to the finished seats. They feel high quality and soft, and very sturdy. Nothing like what I started with!

The reassembled seat:

Volvo 343 seats by Siôn Hudson , on Flickr

The colour of the fabric really changes depending on the light. In darker light it looks dark brown like the picture above, but in bright sunlight it looks a sandy-gold as it is back in the car:

Volvo 343 seats by Siôn Hudson , on Flickr

Almost there – I repeated the process on the driver’s seat:

Volvo 343 seats by Siôn Hudson , on Flickr

But oh dear part of the frame had snapped:

volvo 343 seats by Siôn Hudson , on Flickr

So I got my welder out and did a very bad repair, but at least it’s attached again (I don’t think the gas is working on my welder, I need to look into it):

volvo 343 seats by Siôn Hudson , on Flickr

Finished driver’s seat:

Volvo 343 seats by Siôn Hudson , on Flickr

And that’s it! The whole project took me five full days. Here is the completed car:

Volvo 343 seats by Siôn Hudson , on Flickr

Volvo 343 seats by Siôn Hudson , on Flickr

I've also made a short video:

If your seats are similarly damaged, then I would urge you to have a go yourself. The main thing which has made the difference to me is my Bernina sewing machine. I have used older machines in the past, and found them impossible to use, with the speed being far too fast to control, so assumed I was hopeless at sewing. When my friend in Hong Kong let me use his Bernina, it was an absolute revelation and turned me from someone with zero skills to competent sewer in a matter of a few hours of use. The speed can be so easily controlled, and there is even a half-speed setting.

Looking good, that's very nicely done for someone doing it for the fist time.

Great, that's realy very good. Nice done

Damn, that's quite a difference. The result is looking pretty cool and combines perfectly with the rest of the car.

Nice video, by the way. It gives a great example of how plastic-fantastic the interior is made

Dear Sion,

Thank you very much for sharing your wonderful job with us, looking very nice indeed to my eyes. Job well done, I'd say, and absolutely amazing you managed to find what very much looks like the original fabric. Could you please give us the name or number of the fabric? I suspect some of my fellow members of the Dutch Daf society would love to know this too.

Dear Siôn,

Thank you very much for sharing your wonderful job with us, looking very nice indeed to my eyes. Job well done, I'd say, and absolutely amazing you managed to find what very much looks like the original fabric. Could you please provide us with the fabric's name or number? I suspect some of my fellow members of the Dutch Daf community would love to know this too.

345DL;257677 schreef : The whole project took me five full days.

Time well spent :worship:


I'm currently in the process of renewing the filling from the seats of another volvo (1974 264DL) myself, so it was a lot of fun looking at your project and comparing the work.
Even though your project looks like it was a lot more comprehensive and challenging.
My wife has been sewing a lot lately, though I don't think she'll be contributing to any of my automotive projects any time soon.

How wonderful it must have been to source the original fabric, it was truly a joy to read with all its details.

Brilliant work Siôn! The DAF seats in these early 343s are lovely but as you’ve discovered, the fabric doesn’t age that well. The vinyl usually does, apart from the area around the latches that tilt the front seats, which in your car seem to be okay.

Most DAFs have grey fabric, that’s probably easier to source than the later coloured varieties.

Zebo010;257690 schreef : Dear Siôn,

Thank you very much for sharing your wonderful job with us, looking very nice indeed to my eyes. Job well done, I'd say, and absolutely amazing you managed to find what very much looks like the original fabric. Could you please provide us with the fabric's name or number? I suspect some of my fellow members of the Dutch Daf community would love to know this too.

I'm afraid it didn't have a specific name or number - the company I got it from just had it on their system as 'Volvo ribbed brown'. I sent them pictures and they were able to go through their system to see what they could find that matched.

345DL;257696 schreef : I'm afraid it didn't have a specific name or number - the company I got it from just had it on their system as 'Volvo ribbed brown'. I sent them pictures and they were able to go through their system to see what they could find that matched.

Thank you Siôn, that should do just fine!