The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Interiors The joys of old seats...... It's finally FINISHED!

Well, I have been working on the seat for my '63 C20. It was in dire need of new upholstery. I purchased a velour seat kit from LMC Truck (only took a month to get it ) and decided to have it myself. My first try at fixing up a bench seat, and it's an adventure

I took the seat apart and did the back first. The frame was in great shape but it had mouse problems. Other than that, some scrubbing on the frame, a bit of carpet on the springs, a layer of foam and fighting the cover a little and it was a job well done. Here are the before and after pics.

The bottom is a way different monster. What a mess. Check the torn upholstery the spliced padding and busted springs. I definitely have my hands full with this part of it. On the upside, I have a spare frame that has plenty of good springs on it to get this seat up to snuff. It will be a while yet before it's done but I'll update this when it is.

looks like a fun project

Holy crapoly BEAR!
Somebody has done a lot of "gittin' in and out" of that seat!
Great job you're doing!
Bluedawg

Thanks, Bluedawg. I need all the encouragement I can get. This thing has turned into a real pain in the butt. I have wondered just how many times a person has to get in and out of a truck to crush the seat springs like that. It was pretty bad, but I am making progress. I'm going to go tomorrow and see what it's going to run to get the bottom frame media blasted and powder coated. I finally have it all apart and am hoping to get it all together before too much longer.

Hehehee

I read this title and thought.
The joys of old seats.... - is that when you fart they fart back.

Sorry

Either that or they just disintegrate...lol...

This seat has been a heck of a project. I'm finally putting it back together now, started on that today. The powder coating fell through and it took me forever to get it painted up. It was worth it though. Now I'm in the process of reattaching the springs, and that is taking some serious thought and effort on that driver's side. I am missing a spring and my other seat didn't have it either, so I'm having to take an extra, cut it and splice it onto the other broken piece. I'm also reinforcing the driver's side with metal rods so hopefully it will hold up for many miles. I'll add a bunch more pics once I get it done, I've been snapping away as I'm going along. This sucker better be comfortable too. I'll be pretty ticked if it isn't

It's DONE!!!! I'm a happy lad at this point. It was a lot of work to get this seat back in shape, but it's not too bad at all. Like I mentioned before, the powder coating never happened. So I cleaned the frame and primed it up. After that I spent a bunch of time painting it and getting it spruced up. Then came reassembly...

The reassembly took a lot of time. Most of it was fine, but getting things fixed on that driver's side was interesting. I added a small steel rod to the upper frame to help strengthen the broken framing and I had to get inventive to replace missing springs. I got it and it looks good. Then came the carpet layer followed by the foam. I used two layers of foam. I had a slight bulge in the middle of the seat caused by replacing springs so I countered that by covering the surrounding areas with 1" medium density foam and then covering the whole shebang with a big piece of 2" medium density foam. It turned out pretty good that way and when sitting on the seat you don't even notice the difference. The only real downside is there is still a slight droop on the driver's side front corner, but it's far and away better than it was when I started. Now, to get the rest of the cab done so I can get this sucker installed

Congrats! on the fine finished product your project turned out to be, ya did a nice job!
Tim

Well done.

Hey bear, just saw your post,looks like a professional job.Be proud.I was checking your early posts and you said it was a pain in the butt.I wonder if maybe there was a broken spring sticking up where you would sit.

Thanks for the comments, guys. I am pretty proud of how this seat turned out, especially since I had never attempted anything like this before. Oh, and One Ear.... I am plain lucky that I never had any stab wounds in my posterior

Mike...I'll send you mine over, you could make a career out of 'seat restoration'! BTW can you do leather?

Nice job!

Jock

Looks really good. Hope mine comes out that nice when I get to them. The sloping seat problem. I have a 76 F150 I bought many years ago from a short (5'2" maybe) stocky contractor. He even had wood blocks under the seat to raise it to see over the dash. That seat was worn as bad as yours. It was from him sliding in and out on the edge, being he was so short. I replaced the seat, but now that I see how yours turned out if I run into that problem again I know it is not impossible to fix. Good job!

Excellent job...

Jock, I say keep yours because I'm not sure I would ever do this again..... Although...... I do have a heavy duty sewing machine.... Hmmmm.... Now the gears are working

Wasat... anything is possible if you throw enough time and money into it. I have around $350 stuck into this seat. To be honest, I probably should have just bought a replacement.

A Vette 4 Me: thanks! I need all the kind words just to justify the time and effort!

NICE JOB!

Bears63, I will probably have that much or more into mine also before its all said and done. But its not the $ all the time its in the satisfaction of a job well done. Give yourself a couple pats on the back from me and feel good about it!

I have given myself several pats on the back...lol... I am pretty proud of how the seat turned out. I was determined to fix up the original seat and I did that and I'm beyond happy with it. I just can't help about thinking of the wisdom of fixing up the old one when I could have bought a replacement for less. That's just me though.