The Saga continues...
1st, thanks Mothertrucker for the clutchhead screws and telling me their real name. He's one of the really great people I've meet on this forum, always ready to share information and in this case FREE screws. I picked up two smaller sizes of driver bits tonight in my local Osh Hardware
(owned by Sears, west coast chain only I think)
[img]
http://www.choyassociates.com/Stovebolt/clutch-head.jpg[/img]
The seat mounting bolts are going to be a little harder to find. Here's what they look like:
[img]
http://www.choyassociates.com/Stovebolt/bolts-black.jpg[/img] [img]
http://www.choyassociates.com/Stovebolt/bolts-white.jpg[/img]
There's four pieces to each; the carriage or farmer's bolt, the pillow block, a lock washer and the wingnut. There's no text on any of them. So far I've found lots of simillar bolts and wingnuts but with writing and not exactly identical. Course some of them should do the job OK, but I'd like to find four actual chevy sets if I can. Tim needs a set too while your all out looking in your coffee cans!
Anyways, that's the easy stuff, the bad news is that Jim Carter's has let me down. I got 11yds of their "perfect match" Spanish grain brown vinyl today, and it isn't even close.
Now I have the highest respect for those guys, and I'm sure its exact for some year and model of Chevy or GMC truck, maybe even some '53 Suburbans, but not mine. I should have known better too; when I was there with the truck in June I bought a driver's door handle to replace my torn up original. (broken purple bakelight underpiece) It doesn't match my upholstery, but it is an exact match for the yard goods they just sent me. The stitching isn't all that close either.
[img]
http://www.choyassociates.com/Stovebolt/door-handles.jpg[/img]
Jim Carter's Brown Vinyl on the left
Chevy's '53 Suburban Vinyl on the right
(This brown vinyl is labeled Weymouth all over the backing, my truck was built at the Wisconsin plant, fabric is an exact match for the fragments of remaining upholstery on the middle seat Mothertrucker found me in a junkyard in Arizona.)(birthplace unknown)
Sigh,
So the fabric needs to go back and I'm still hunting for the right stuff. My upholstery guy has found an exact match for the grain, but its quite a bit lighter shade of brown so there might be somebody out there still making the right stuff. (And if somebody has an unbroken purple bakelight driver's dool pull, fabric unimportant, please let me know)
So that's today's installment of "As the Suburban Fabric Turns", tune in next time, same Stovebolt Station.
-John
