1961 Coupe - Seat refresh project log

[mistfr]

An attempt to freshen up the seats...

There's two concerns that I'm trying the fix. One is the cracked plastic skirts on the seat sides and the other is a disintegrating foam (especially on the driver side). Of course new foam would be the preferable choice but it is outside my current financial possibilities right now so that will have to wait...

So here's the progress so far...

Driver side seat underneath. The foam was really hard/dry and pretty much fell apart on the slightest touch.
Luckily the "dry rot" had only affected the lower half of the foam so I started to cut as much as possible of the dry foam out.


Cut a piece of new foam and glued it in place.


I believe the foam has been replaced at some point in history because it was to wide to mount the new plastic skirts (this is likely the cause of all the cracks in the old skirts). I used a really coarse sand paper on a drilling machine to remove foam on the sides to make the foam fit the seat frame better.


My drivers seat has the electric undercarriage and with that a nice switch to control it. The original side skirts probably had some nice fittings for this switch, non of which was present on any of my skirts. My old plastic skirt had a crudely cut out hole and the switch moved around every time it was used.
After a session of CAD work a fitting was designed and printed on my 3d-printer.


The result...


Next step will be to put it back in the car, reattach the back rest and start working on the passenger seat...

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[Hadderz]

Well done, looks great. I need to do this but my vinyl is also split and cracked.

 

[mistfr]

A small update...
Got the driver seat positioned in the car and the passenger seat extracted so work continues. Also added a pic of one of the old cracked side skirts that was replaced.

 

[Hadderz]

Looking good! What are your seat belts out of?

 

[mistfr]

Looking good! What are your seat belts out of?

The seat belts are from RetroBelt:
- https://www.retrobelt.com/collectio...actable-push-button-lap-belt-for-bucket-seats

Used retractable ones in the front and non retractable in the back. When I got the car it had belts added to the front seats only but as I want to bring my kids in the car I had to add belts to the back seat as well. Ended up buying new belts all around so they look the same even though not original...

 

[mistfr]

So... The seats are back in the car and feels really nice to sit in. New side skirts, firmer seats and a tighter fit of the upholstery made this a success! Hopefully it'll last for a few years and then I can get all seats done properly with new foam and covers.

Old stiff foam cut out. The side parts of the seat were actually in quite good condition, only the center piece was really bad. I've replaced the parts that I could cut out without removing the reinforcing cloth.


With the seat frame centered on the foam this was how much the foam was sticking out on the sides creating an excessive pressure on the side skirts and likely caused the cracks. In the right pic below you can also see how a previous person has tried to cut the foam down to make it fit. Not very beautiful...


I glued some really (non) high tech reinforcements to the bottom of the seat foam. Put the original burlap with its steel wires back on the foam and hog ringed everything up with the seat frame. Also added the cd-player (who actually use these things nowadays!?) to the underside of the seat, keeps it nicely hidden once in the car.


The final result... Which looks pretty much like it did before except for the cracked side skirts an a better fit on the driver seat.