Recently my husband brought me one of his jackets that had lost the pull from the zipper slider and asked if I could fix it. I actually found the pull later in the washing machine, so it must have fallen off in the wash. You can see in the photo below how the pull had just completely broken off the slider! Which obviously made it very annoying to zip up!

I found that really the only way to fix it would be to replace the whole slider – and it actually didn’t look too difficult! So I thought I’d give it a try, and it actually was just as straightforward as it seemed!

And of course – I made a video tutorial of the process! You can watch the video below – or if you prefer a written tutorial, just scroll on past the video for that.

Video Tutorial

Written Tutorial

Ok, so the first thing I needed to do was determine what size of zipper sliders to order. The size was written on the back of the zipper slider and on the lower zipper stop. It was listed as a size 5 zipper.

So I ordered a bag of size 5 jacket zipper sliders from Wawak – THESE are the zipper sliders I ordered.

I also ordered some size 5 zipper stops because I’m going to have to take the old top zipper stop off in order to get the old slider off. So this way I’ll be able to replace it! THESE are the stops I ordered.

Now on to the actual project! First, I needed to seam rip the stitches around the top of the zipper enough to free the top of the zipper tape. We’ll have to straighten out the zipper tape to get the old slider off.

Next, once the top of the zipper tape is free we have to get the old zipper stop off. This was by far the most difficult part of the project! That zipper stop was REALLY glued on! I was able to get it off eventually by pulling it off with the needlenose pliers.

Once the zipper stop was off, the old zipper slider could be easily slid off the zipper tape.

And then I could slide on the new slider!

Next it was time to put on a new zipper stop. I just squished one onto the zipper tape with the needlenose pliers in the same spot the old one used to be.

And the last step! I folded the top of the zipper tape back down and arranged the fabric back around it the same way it was before seam ripping. I clipped it in place with a sewing clip and took it to my sewing machine. Then I just used a denim needle (for all those layers!) and sewed everything back in place, just sewing in the same old stitching lines that I had seam ripped before.

And we’re done! It’s really that easy! I couldn’t believe how easy it was to replace the slider on this jacket. And it only took a half hour or so.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! If you have a jacket that needed a new zipper slider, I hope this tutorial helped you save it. 🙂

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