Replacement seat covers - preamble

In France this year was "Rassemblement du Siècle" or the Rally of the Century. Between July 19th and 21st at La Ferté Vidame, Perche saw 60,000 visitors and 10,000 vehicles including 4,200 Citroën models and numerous trade stands.

Amongst these trade stands was the ever helpful and talented Toon and Richard Langelaar from Citro-Classique  If you are going to buy any carpets or seat covers for your DS, these are the people to go to, the quality and attention to detail is flawless and at a reasonable price.

I sent Richard an email to save me a full set of seat covers in Caramel Jersey Velours rayé for the 1973 model year Pallas, he duly obliged then relieved me of €550 - worth every penny!

The "Jersey rayé" or striped Jersey trim was only available between 1970 and 1973 models after that it was superseded by "Jersey carré" or square Jersey trim on the 1974 & 1975 models years.

Nylon and foam after 46 years of sunlight and damp takes its toll, the nylon disintegrates and the foam turns to dust, the only solution is to remove the seats, strip them down and replace the seat upholstery and the foam padding/wadding.

The only special tools required for this job are hog ring pliers. Hog rings are like big staples, used to attach the upholstery to the foam and frame, the pliers are readily available and I bought mine through Amazon for £30.00 with 1,000 hog rings.

I started with the rear seat cushion as this was easily removed and looked more of a straight forward job, some of the deterioration can be seen below.

The foam padding can be seen here which has turned to dust

Hessian fabric was also used on the upholstery but was very fragile and threadbare

The nylon on the seat cover has deteriorated and vanished

Next... the rear seat cushion.