W123 seats -- disassembly, skin removal padding refurbish, misc. notes - Page 2 - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

jotscan · #1 06-13-2021, 12:46 PM

Seat padding part number: 123 910 29 50

Ordered from World Upholstery & Trim for $240 (3 months lead time). Made of coconut husk or fiber bonded with rubberized resin.

MB part # 123 910 38 16 - Discontinued.

Opted not to use the new seat padding (made from coconut husk or fiber) since the original "foam" padding is still in good condition. Wasted money, should have disassembled the seat first before ordering.

crazy4diesel · #2 02-05-2014, 08:54 PM

I wanted to thank Jooseppi for this, I'll be rebuilding my seats at some point and will find it very useful. Looking forward to the rest.

pepijn · #3 08-11-2014, 05:46 PM

Hi Jooseppi Luna,

Thank you so much for this! I'm currently restoring my 1985 w123 and at some point, i need to replace the upholstery as well. I was wondering whether you already finished the project. Is it hard to instal the new upholstery? Or is that the reverse? Is it easy to put the edges of the upholstery back to where they belong?

Thanks again!

estelle32 · #4 08-25-2014, 02:16 PM

Thanks for all the great upholstery info! My husband and I are working on a complete restoration of an '81 300TD.

Does anyone know if the seats are interchangeable from '85 300CD to an '82 300TD? I have a coupe that we're taking some parts off of and the seats are in much better shape. Would love to swap them to the wagon but they seem slightly different.

ROLLGUY · #5 08-25-2014, 03:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by estelle32

Thanks for all the great upholstery info! My husband and I are working on a complete restoration of an '81 300TD.

Does anyone know if the seats are interchangeable from '85 300CD to an '82 300TD? I have a coupe that we're taking some parts off of and the seats are in much better shape. Would love to swap them to the wagon but they seem slightly different.

The seat upholstery is the same with the exception being the seat back release button hole in the coupe. The seat base is interchangeable on the TD, D, CD etc. The seat base (spring box) should be different in the coupe because of the seat back being hinged. If you are putting seat back skins from a D or TD in a CD, no problem. The other way around, you will have a hole in the vinyl where the seat back release was. You could just install the release button in your TD seat back to cover the hole, but it would not be hooked up to anything.....Rich

scottyc · #6 12-16-2014, 10:05 PM

Where are the bolts on the rear part of the seat bottom, that hold the seat in to the tracks or the tracks to the floor? I can't figure out how to remove the seat. Thanks

scottyc · #7 12-16-2014, 10:09 PM

It's an 85' w123

TheDon · #8 12-16-2014, 10:13 PM

To remove the bolts to the car you need to use the side handle, the height adjuster, and slide it forward. Then you can access the bolts at the rear.

Once you have it out you will see 6 large Phillips head screws, two of which are hidden by the seat rails. You have to move the seat rails to egg the access joke over them so you can remove the screws.

In all honesty, the first time I took a seat apart I just winged it.

scottyc · #9 12-16-2014, 10:41 PM

I figured it out, you gotta pull up on the side handle. Thanks

unkl300d · #10 02-23-2016, 06:59 PM

Thanks Molyp* for this opportune tutorial. I just finished taking apart my old '79 driver seat.
Mine did not have hog-wire clips. In order to access the large nut to remove the arm rest, one has to remove two Phillips screw that hold a metal frame bar. One side of that bar rests on the nut in order to keep it from turning. Then remove one 10mm bolt next to the nut.

All in all this tutorial was great. Easy to remove the upholstery.

THANKS

vwnate1 · #11 02-01-2020, 12:10 AM

Subscribed, I need to do the seats in two of my W123's....

cmac2012 · #12 02-01-2020, 12:55 PM

Hey, great save. I found two excellent palomino seats in a 300SD a few months back and then discovered that they wouldn't swap into my 300SDL. They changed the seats and electonics in the post '85 W126s. So I pulled off the skins, also had a freebie palamino seat, just the platform, no base. Now I need to put them on my SDL. Not sure if the skins would fit on my 300D seats, also palamino but the vinyl sort. I haven't finished reading the thread yet, might be in there.

Shern · #13 12-18-2020, 02:09 AM

I'm in the process of refurbishing. I currently have two passenger seat-back pads, donors from two different cars. One is spongy, supple and greenish, the other is hard and brittle, mostly brown with some green. Both appear to be horsehair with some rubberizing element. The spongy one seems like it'll last another 20 years while the (clearly) horse hair pad has a year tops before it meets the same fate as the pad its replacing.

I suspect one of them is only synthetic horse hair, whatever that might mean, while the other likely ran the Kentucky Derby.

Does anyone know if Mercedes used different seat-back material across 123s over various years?

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vwnate1 · #14 12-22-2020, 02:26 AM

IIRC it's coconut fibers, not horse hair .

The green ones seem to be better .

In the past I've found good condition seat buns that were crispy and use 3M upholstery spray glue to save them .

For certain you'd be wise to cover the springs with muslin or other sturdy cloth before re installing the buns....

Please take and share pictures, it's been decades since I did much auto upholstery and I'm wanting to re skin my '82 240D's seats front and rear .

Shern · #15 12-24-2020, 02:26 PM

Apparently horse hair is a popular urban legend. Though difficult to confirm one way or the other.

I ended up ditching the crispy back and god am I happy I did. Here's a shot of them below.
Crispy left, bouncy right.

It was a fiddly but enjoyable process. I had two donor seats to play around with -a passenger and driver- from a generous forum member.

My driver, or course, required the most work. Here's the original back exposed.

And here it is where it belongs.

No more hoovering clydesdale/coir!

New back installed:

While it may have been possible to salvage the crispy back by wrapping it in glue, there's no chance it would have been as comfortable as a backing that's still bouncy and pliable. I found another passenger side cushion in the yard. What's odd is the difference. I pulled two perfect backs off of 1980 model 300Ds. On 81s? Junk. I suspect the manufacturing process varied between years...

Meanwhile, the seat back springs were heavily worn.
While it's possible to take a passenger seat back frame and install it on the driver's side (the arm rest can be moved with ease), the adjustment will then be on the wrong side. This sucks for a number of reasons I've not seen mentioned.

1.) the adjuster will be in a super awkward place, behind the seatbelt latch and under the armrest. Good luck to you.

2.) You will not be able to reinstall the plastic trim on that side because the shape required does not exist.

3.) Don't do it.

Instead, it's easy enough to pry open the mounting tabs and swap the spring assembly, keeping the otherwise solid driver back frame:

Skin going back on:

The seat bottom/base, is interesting. My 81 did not come with this style of spring box. I pulled it from the Yard. See the circular coils in the front? That appears to be a later addition. My original base did not have those. The nice thing about those coils is that MB makes very cheap foam inserts to bolster them. Believe they were originally a taxi upgrade. They're like 5-7 bucks each and well worth it. Here's how they look and fit:

And here's the money:

I drove nine hours yesterday. Imagine replacing a lazyboy stuffed with hay for one filled with memory foam. It was a bit like that.

Refurb those seats!