hey all, I picked up a car seat that im going to use in my Ford for my upcoming human addition!!(baby) Has anyone seen, heard of, someone taking the removable cover off of the car seat and using it as a pattern to make a custom upholstered cover to match the interior of their custom or hotrod? Im looking for thoughts and ideas on it. Also, has anyone used the new style latch system mounting in their hotrod or custom to accomodate the new style car seats so you dont have to use the seat belts in the car? any help and thoughts are much appreciated Jason
Yes and Yes. There was a guy with a beautiful Falcon wagon at LSRU 2012 that had car seats with matching interior. He said he just took the covers off and took them to his upholsterer but they looked sweet. I'm sure if you can do interior work it cant be too hard to DIY The mounting hardware is easy as long as you have bracing plates just like seat belt mounts. Keep in mind if your using the top strap that would go over the seat in a new car and trying to attach that to the package tray in an old car, I don't think that the package tray is even close to being structural enough....... I would overkill the hell out of mounts for my kiddos
I'm def going to overkill the mounting. I think I'm only going to use the lower mounts. Like you say, the package tray isn't strong enough. Thanks for the input! Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
Might look at doing a roll bar type hoop from the floor to just under the package tray (right up to it) and then mount the upper hardware to that....... look at a 2004-2008 dodge truck 4dr and see how that upper strap is done....something similar might work, I have one and will try to snap a pic for you.
Cool, I have a newer gmc that uses the same kind of system. Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
In my experience swapping seats around using those latch systems is more of a PIA than the seatbelt. On our modern cars the lower latch rings are buried so deep in the seat crack you can't get a finger in there to unlatch them. Of course if you made your own, might be better.
Don't forget that the seat needs to be rear facing for pretty much the first two years so the top strap actually goes to the floor or the front seat. I agree that the factory mounts are a pain to access but the seat is WAY more firmly secured with them than just seat belts.
That's a pretty cool idea. Should be fairly simple to execute too if you're good with a needle and thread...or machine. I'd like to see how it plays out though, are you going to post pictures?
Well I won't be stitching it up. My interior guy would do that. My car needs some love with the seats so I'm sure he could order some extra material to make the seat cover. Thanks all for the good tips. I know the seat has to face backwards until a certain weight. I might just make something so I can utilize the car seat attaching system. I feel it would be safer and I can build it so I don't have to dig too deep for the mount.
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