by Barry Levitt 1997 U270 8/18/04
We purchased from FlexSteel new pre-cut and shaped foam and have redone our two front chairs ourselves. Our chairs are Flexsteel, but I assume that Villa also offers the same. The cost for all the engineered foam pieces was about $75 a chair.
New foam full seat plus 2 separate pieces for the seat cover, 3 pieces for the back cover, and soft fill for the back. Took us parts of 4 days for the first seat, then 2 days for the second seat. We also put some extra foam on the bottom to suit our personal preference.
The seat is a little easier than the back. Remove chair from a coach by 1/2″ wrench removing bolts holding seat to the motorized seat base.
You can leave motorized base on a floor base. You may want to later remove the large single nut holding base to floor bracket to lube the bearing assembly that the seat rotates on. This is also an opportunity to adjust the rotation so it does not rock. Lube and clean the 3 motor assemblies.
Remove the electric switch from the base. The switch comes off the switch base so it can be slid through the chair and completely removed from the chair.
Turn the chair over and remove skirt screws. Remove recline lever trim.
Remove stainless clips holding the fabric to chair bottom. Spread with a screwdriver and long nose pliers all hog rings holding the bottom fabric to the chair. You may be able to work around the back hog rings and leave them in place.
Remove the bottom fabric by manually freeing the fabric glued to the chair frame and original foam with your hands.
This is a great time to clean the fabric (vinyl or leather).
Turn over the fabric, remove staples closing the two pockets holding foam pre-fill. I hear a hairdryer can help loosen stubborn adhesive, but we had no problem using our hands.
Insert new foam into pockets being careful to replace them the same way as the original (white stuff toward fabric).
We sprayed a little spray glue between the foam and the bottom of the pocket material. We used plain spray adhesive from Lowe’s. We sewed the pockets closed with strong thread and a curved needle. Spray the seat frame and put the new big piece of foam centered on the seat frame.
We decided to cut a piece of the old foam to put on top the rear of the seat and a smaller piece in front. This had the effect of leveling and raising the sitting position but not the front top of the seat, which removed some pressure from under out thighs.
We tapered the edge of the additional foam to give a feathered edge. A little glue held it in place.
Reverse all to put it back together. Use glue where ever you want. Waiting after spraying makes the adhesive tacky and less permanent. Sometimes we waited and sometimes we did not wait. We used new hog rings closing them with ordinary slip-joint pliers. Sometimes it was necessary to hold the new hog ring in place with pliers from the other side while we squeezed the ring closed with other pliers.
Recommend doing one chair at a time. We started with co-pilot first so driver chair would be available for travel while we figured out any problems. Second chair WILL go easier.
To take off the arms of our Flexsteel chair arms to re-do the foam.
Our chair arm came off by pushing the arm to the chair at the pivot point. While pushing in, rotate the arm down toward the seat cushion, past the normal stopping position. Then as you get the arm down near the cushion a key in the arm will align the arm to a keyway in the chair frame. You have to ‘play’ with it to get the key in the right position.
Personally, I think most of us can do the job without any big problems. Hog rings can take a little patience. By Barry and Cindy 1997 U270 36′
We finally fixed the driver’s seat on our 96 U270. We had posted earlier that the driver’s seat had gotten very uncomfortable, the foam had collapsed and needed to be replaced. We were going to take the chair to an upholstery shop, but we contacted Flexsteel and they were able to send us new foam for the seat on our chair. We only replaced the seat foam, the back still feels good. The cost of the foam was only $25.00. Dealing with Flexsteel took a little patience, they were slow in sending the foam.
The person that we talked to at Flexsteel about ordering the foam for our chair was Ms. Kafer. Her phone number is (563) 585-8205. You have to know the model number of your chair, there is a tag under the seat that has the number on it.
As for the installation, Ben wasn’t sure if he could take the cover off and replace the foam, but he tried and it was not that hard. It looks wonderful and is so much more comfortable. He removed the four bolts holding the base and he removed the clips that hold the cover in place. We only replaced the seat foam, so we didn’t remove the back covering. Ben pulled the old foam out and stuffed the new foam piece back in. It took him about 45 minutes after the seat was removed to complete the job.
We will be calling Ms. Kafer for another piece of foam for the co-pilot’s seat next. We drove about 2 1/2 hours on the new pilot’s seat this weekend and could tell a difference in the comfort level. Ben & Bonnie Harris 6/27/04
Our model number was not on the tag, but it was painted in black on the bottom of the seat. It should be four numbers. Ben & Bonnie Harris 1/18/05
We redid our Villa seats last year. We contacted Villa and they sent us the required foam pieces FREE. We needed to purchase the hog rings and a tool to use them. We used the instructions above and found the job as stated – quite a bit of doing, but doable. Well worth the effort. We did modify the foam and use some of the old foam to build up the seats.