Headrests on a budget

[Daral]

I decided to add headrests to my MK4. After talking to several people at the London Cobra show this past summer I decided to give it a try. I was told an Audi A4 had headrests that would look good. I couldn't find an A4 but I did find a 2006 A6 in a local junkyard. The headrests were identical to an A4. I took my saws all and removed the entire top 1/3 of the front seats so I had the bracket that held the headrest.
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The junkyard charged me $20 for each seat.

The headrests and brackets that I wanted are shown here. I cut off the extra metal because all I wanted were the tubes attached to the flat bracket.
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The next thing I did was remove the seat covers. I attached a piece of sheet metal to the seat back with rivets and then attached the headrest bracket to that metal also using rivets.
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That's it. I put the seat covers back on (no extra padding was needed) and instead of using the hognose clips, I used zip ties. They made it much easier to get the seat covers on correctly.
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Total cost of this project $40 plus a couple rivets and metal bracket which I already had in the garage.

[Stangrob]

Nicely done! Looks "factory".

BTW I also noticed your sliding cubby door - cool.

Rob

[Daral]

Thanks. The sliding cubby door was a bit more work than the headrests.

[AC Bill]

Excellent job! I'm impressed at how good they look.
I always felt headrests would be a big safety advantage, as I'm sure other builders would as well, so thanks for showing the steps it took to do this.
I'm sure how easy it may be dealing with auto-wreckers on destroying a set of seats. Did they charge you a premium for them?

[Daral]

Excellent job! I'm impressed at how good they look.
I always felt headrests would be a big safety advantage, as I'm sure other builders would as well, so thanks for showing the steps it took to do this.
I'm sure how easy it may be dealing with auto-wreckers on destroying a set of seats. Did they charge you a premium for them?

Once I found the A6, I went back and got a quote on the two seatbacks before I cut them out. Most of the expensive gears and hardware for the electric seats is in the base which I left in the car.

[Fuel an]

Great job Daral, looks factory. What did you do to perforate the seats and line up the headrest shafts with the bracket inside the seat?

[NJMike]

Daral, the seats and headrests look great! Headrests have been on my list of "wants" once I begin my build, just wasn't sure how to go about it, now I know. Thanks for providing the details along with photos, I'll definitely be saving this one.

[Dondero14]

Very cool and good idea. Looks like the seats were made that way.

[OSU Cowboy]

I designed head rests attached to the roll bars. I didn't want to tear into the seats themselves.

[Just 1 More]

WOW, Great work and thank you so much for the detailed tutorial.

[Daral]

Great job Daral, looks factory. What did you do to perforate the seats and line up the headrest shafts with the bracket inside the seat?

I lined up the top of the two tubes with the top of the metal seat back and centered them on the seat from left to right. If you look at the pictures, you can see that the Audi bracket is centered on the seat back. Once you have the seat cover back on, you can feel the two tubes with your finger through the leather and foam. One is square, the other is round. I found the center of them with my finger and used a scalpel to cut through the seat cover and foam. A razor blade or Exacto knife would work well too. For the square tube, I cut an H pattern and folded the extra material down alongside the tube. for the round tube, I cut a round hole just slightly smaller than the tube opening and stretched the material around the tube before inserting the headrest inserts. The headrest inserts from Audi have a nice wide top that covers the openings.