PUI seat foams with Legendary seat covers ????

[750-h2]

Bought some PUI bucket seat foams from Dave and some Legendary cloth and vinyl seat covers from Legendary for my 1970 Challenger SE. My upholstery guy with 40 years experience called me today to tell me that there is no way the bucket seat backs covers will fit over the new seat foams. Says the foam is way too big ? He installed all  the other covers and they fit great. His option at this point is too drastically shave the new seat foams or re use the old ones.  Has anyone else experience this problem? 

[70 Challenger Lover]

I used new PUI foam with new Legendary covers on the bucket seats of my 70 R/T and they came out beautiful. I was with the guy when he installed them as I wanted to learn. They were tight. I mean like piano string tight. But we got them on and the upholstery guy (who's been doing high end custom upholstery work his whole life) said it was not unusual in his experience to see new foam and covers this tight. Said they would eventually stretch out and soften up. Haven't put the new seats in the car yet but just sitting in my spare room, I've noticed they have relaxed a bit. They look amazing. Like someone sprayed liquid vinyl on it. Not a wrinkle anywhere.

I'd be very hesitant to cut on the foam. As the covers stretch with use and the foam softens up, your likely to have all kinds of sags and wrinkles. Any chance you have foam that is incorrect for your covers? They had two different foam styles I believe for 70. All the metal seat frames are the same for all A, B, and E body cars so maybe they sent you foam that's actually for A body covers or something like that?

I used PUI foam in my corvette too with Al Knoch covers and I remember sending it out to a local upholstery place that had a great reputation. They did nice work but the guy commented on how difficult it was to get the new covers on. So difficult in fact that he charged me 6 hours of labor for two bucket seats. Needless to say I never went back. Point is I think the PUI foam is hard as a rock until you compress it for a while with use. I even recall driving the corvette at first was like riding on a park bench. It took more than 500 miles of use to soften up.

[750-h2]

70 Challenger, thanks for your input. Not sure what to think anymore? I definitely have the right style seat foam. My guy says he had the seat covers so hot that it was burning his hands yet they still wouldn't fit over the foam. On Sunday I will meet him at his shop as he wants to show me the problem. Maybe time to find someone else for the install?  In the past he has done several snowmobile seats for me and they always turned out great.

[anlauto]

Does Legendary not make seat foams ? Why buy PUI ?

[750-h2]

Never thought about it. I just ordered seat foams from Dave and PUI is what I got. Seems like PUI foams may not be the problem?

[RUNCHARGER]

Just call Dave. I don't like PUI stuff much but I have no experience with their foams.

[aussiemark]

I am thinking better tight then loose, if it's loose there will be wrinkles and they will look saggy you see it a lot and looks awful.

[anlauto]

I also have limited experience with PUI products....for a reason...they stink P-U 

...but I agree, if you can make them work, the tighter the cover the better

[RJChallenger]

Does Legendary not make seat foams ? Why buy PUI ?

I was worried about PUI quality as well, so I went with legendary seat foam. The foam itself may be superior in quality.I found voids in the foam as well as stress cracks. not overly happy with the appearance. For the money they want you would expect to find the muslin strips already glued in place. While on this subject, in the Legendary installation video, they only install 3 of the 4 listing wires on the seat back of a 70 Challenger R/T. They dont install the lower horizontal listing wire and their foam is not sliced to accept that listing wire? But their seat cover backs have 4 listing wire slots . What have you guys done in the past. like the factory did or legendary

[750-h2]

UPDATE: Went to the shop today as requested, He worked some more on the seat back and it looks AWSOME!  As tight as a drum skin with zero wrinkles! He says he just kept working the hot cover over the new foam, never shaved off anything. The PUI foams are definitely not for the novice do it yourself guy, but once installed properly make the seat look  fantastic!

[70 Challenger Lover]

I'm glad it worked out. I didn't want to cause you any doubts but I suspected your guy hadn't worked with stiff new foam like this much before.

When I did mine recently, the guy allowed me to hang out and help so I could learn. It was kind of a two man job and I remember asking him how he normally did it alone since they were so tight. He just laughed and said it was all about experience. He learned how to just take his time and patiently work the covers on. It was a chore though.

I think you are really going to like the look after you use them a bit and break them in.

[750-h2]

70 Challenger lover: Thanks again for your post. I told my guy about your experience with the PUI foam and I think that is what motivated him to try again.