Seats: Cover or Swap

[Brain75]

Just ended up inheriting a 1990 Ranger XLT 2WD standard cab 7' bed (Mountain States Edition). The headliner is trashed but otherwise it is in better shape than the '07 that is replacing it. It's really in incredibly good shape for a 34 year old vehicle. It's stock - no upgrades to cruise/tilt steering/etc.

The driver seat has one small wear spot on the back (typical entry/exit friction wear) and one small cigarette burn on the bottom. I would like to put new headliner in it, but it seems LMC, etc all the places I have hunted don't carry that old - the only result showing up for a recover it yourself kit, so that's that...

New Ford Ranger - Regular Cab Headliner Replacement

Ford Ranger - Regular Cab Headliner custom made to fit your vehicle just like original. Our new Ford Ranger - Regular Cab Headliner is the highest quality available at the best price.

www.stockinteriors.com

(1st result in that is too new - 93+, 2nd result is the only product I have found - fabric and spray adhesive)

...as far as the seats I thought I would throw covers on and be done, well until I found out the 60/40 split bench seat cover world is basically unicorn hunting.
I found these 2:

Pardon Our Interruption...

1989-1990 Ford Ranger High Back 60/40 Split Seat with Integrated Armrest | Durafit Covers | Custom Fit Car Covers, Truck Covers, Van Covers, Waterproof Covers, Neoprene Covers

1989-1990 Ford Ranger High Back 60/40 Split Seat with Integrated Armrest | Durafit Covers | Custom Fit Car Covers, Truck Covers, Van Covers, Waterproof Covers, Neoprene Covers | We make year-make-model specific car seat covers and truck seat covers for Ford, Chevy, Honda, Toyota, and more...

www.durafitcovers.com

durafit has a $40 restocking fee if you return it, so that is basically un-returnable in my books.
edit: durafit website is down it looks like, but their products up on an amazon store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Duraf...F-B7F4-43C1-BF9D-3AC0B157BDA2?tag=959media-20
their website also has/had tech articles and videos and more info.
/edit
I spent a lot of time googling around for covers, and this place (here - the ranger station) kept coming up in my searches for swapping seats.

Assuming that nobody here counters with a cheap $35 cover set that actually fits and has decent reviews, I now consider swapping in bone yard bucket seats and then probably covering those.
I did my due diligence and searched before posting, found the 10 pages of results in a 42 page forum suggesting 1/4 of all posts are about swapping seats... grab a big cup of coffee and start reading.
I have read the seat swap tech article, the 60 bench seat chop/trim article and and and... I did my research before posting.
Seems that 90% of the info is about swapping into an extend cab or a newer model than I have. Could you guys help by countering with a list of what will work in a 90 standard cab or what will not work from this article, please?

Ford Ranger Seat Swap - The Ranger Station

Originally By: AllanD (Photo of Escort GT seats inside TRS-2 1996 Ranger) NOTE: A lot of this information has been gathered from our forum members. If you have information to contribute, please use the Contact button at the bottom. … Continued

www.therangerstation.com

I'm 900 miles from my shop and gear, so what I "can do" here is kinda limited - no fabrication, etc... just what I could do with a set of harbor fright junk hand tools and a single bone yard in 100 mile radius.
I also have a 1948 Ford F1 - have done a rear axle swap, transmission swap, reupholstered the seat from scratch, etc. I am competent with tools and even fabication, but that was done with a fully functional shop.

FWIW, I am not looking to hot rod, lower, lift, or totally redo the truck, it works, it does what it needs, I just would do the tiniest quality of life upgrades for reasonable money... not spending $5000 trying to modernize a $1000-$2500 blue book truck.

 

[jballard81]

i see you have the 60/40 seats. The reason seat tech article was mainly about extended cab seats was the tracks are different between buckets and 60/40. If you already have buckets, the brackets can be re-used on other ford buckets of that era (like the explorer).

if you do not want to swap over to buckets, then your options are finding another 60/40 from a junk yard (likely trashed as well), or recover. I'm not personally experienced with the 60/40s. i spent 5 months digging through JY's until i found a pair of 99 explorer seats i'm pretty happy with.

for your headliner, is it trashed as in the backing is falling apart and it can't possibly be saved? Mine was pretty rough, but the backing was mostly there. i glued cardboard to the corners that were beat up, then recovered it. If my headliner has to come out again however, i'm going to add a layer or two of fiberglass to the backing to strengthen it up.

 

[901wd#2]

I had a tore up driver seat in the b2 kept finding mint passenger seats so I bought one tore it down and put the fabric and foam on the driver seat frame and reassembled it.

 

[jballard81]

I had a tore up driver seat in the b2 kept finding mint passenger seats so I bought one tore it down and put the fabric and foam on the driver seat frame and reassembled it.

That's a pretty smart idea. in fact, even though i'm happy with the 99 explorer seats i found, I want to find another passenger seat so that i can steal the foam from it to replace the one on my driver's.

any chance you got any pictures of your work?

 

[901wd#2]

I found them a while ago on the wayback machine. I posted pics and whatnot on BroncoII dot org but it’s been left to go to the weeds. If you’re bored, brokin was the screen name and the post was “recover your seats cheep”

Once you remove the seat back from the seat, bottom there isn’t much to it.

Also added extra springs for a bit of a direct lift kit.

 

[Brain75]

I haven't pulled the trigger on anything yet, but the $90 ebay covers are probably what I am going to do. More than what I wanted to spend on that one item. The local junk yard is cheap cheap (I am west of the Mississippi and junkyards are like half the price of back east), but all the rangers are red interior or rolled and completely trashed or or... I found a couple explorers (98 and 99) that weren't entirely trash and got the overhead center map light/compass/sunglass cubby unit and wiring harness for it+lighted visors, but it had grey visors and cigarette burns... I could get a matching tan passenger visor (explorer dual/split piece lighted) tomorrow, but all the drivers visors have issues of one sort or another. I even see a 6' bed 1st generation with dual fuel tanks out there in the yard, unfortunately it has a few rust pinholes over the fenders.

To answer the question of how trashed the headliner is, the fabric separated, and someone took the little screw in buttons and perforated the board 20+ times to hold it up. The front edge of the liner (exposed to sun) has sun rotted out and is hanging in tatters. I hope the board is salvageable to recover.

 

[Broosedamoose]

Those ebay covers are actually not bad! I have had two sets now in two different trucks and they do hold up. The only issue is they fade. My first set was red/black and they faded in less than a year. The second set, which I still have now, is all black. I've had them for about 2 1/2 years and they are still holding up.

 

[Brain75]

That was exactly one of the things I was hoping for, someone who has used the models I found and can provide feedback if they are worth anything. Question if you would, do/did you park in a garage or out in the sun when you had a set fade out in 1 year?

 

[Brain75]

Just an update. I drove it a few times (each of the trips to "the 'yard" to get parts, errands, etc), and discovered I hate the fact there is no cupholder and no reasonable way to add one. It's a manual trans so that problem is 10x worse than when driving an auto. Well in one of my trips I found a 1995 Explorer Eddie Bauer edition with the cloth highback bucket electric + electric lumbar. There is one cigarette burn on the driver seat, but otherwise perfect. Figured what better way to add a place to put coffee than swap to buckets, get rid of the bench and add a center console. I manager to save a short 2 cup center console from another ranger that was rolled and everything else was mangled toast. A bit of a clown car color scheme now since all my interior is tan, and the center console is grey, but I figure doing a vinyl paint job to the center console, since the vinyl paints are so much better than they used to be. Anyone have experience with the paint on a hard plastic - vinyl/plastic paint or otherwise? Long term best brand suggestions requested. I have access to pretty much all of em via walmart/oreilly's/autozone - I will NOT buy paint/aerosols from amazon (it's a return policy issue - no refunds, no returns... disreputable sellers know this and send anything/dented/opened/ruined cause "hey they buyer can't return it")

Btw, I spent a day fabbing tracks + swapping in the electric seats - doing a full hybrid fab of the two tracks, it is a pain in the ass, but it saves the electric adjustment - did not love love the way it turned out - the front of the seat is slightly elevated, giving it a little of that laid back lowrider angle (which is fine), but to adjust it to reasonable place in the 2nd gen's much smaller cab you end up kinda high. (the rear of the track is elevated 1/8" from stock - the thickness of a piece of 1/8" strap). the front is basically the same 1/8" lift, but the stock 60/40 brackets have a slope to em. Anyone considering doing all that work to hybrid the tracks to save the electric, I would NOT recommend if you are taller than 5'9", any tall guy is gonna hate the height and how close your thighs end up to the steering wheel. I will be investigating altering up my fab job to lower the front slightly just to increase the thigh clearance.

 

[SenorNoob]

I've always just used Rustoleum from Walmart on my interior plastics. Now I've only done a little (not wear spots), but's held up for years now.