Front Seats Restoration Part 3

Next is to remove the decorative emblem backing plate from the old seat.

New emblem.

Installed.

The original retainers are bigger than the reproductions, so I used the originals.

New foam back.

Now the top side of the seat back foam has grooves but these are for 1965 seats. So we'll need to add channels for the '66 width.

You can see the original wider channels in the old seat foam. A brand new sharp box cutter knife worked well.

These old rods in the old seat cover need to be installed in the new seat covers. Now these rods were hog ringed to the vertical rods through the old foam. The old foam is very thin and reinforced to allow the hog ring to penetrate, however the new foam isn't so forgiving and not reinforced so we didn't take it too thin. This however doesn't let us hog ring it. So my better half came up with an ingenious alternative to a hog ring.

She used heavy gauge safety wire to make effectively a long hog ring.

She pushed the heavy stiff safety wire through around the rod in the seat cover, through the foam and around the vertical rods affixed to the seat back springs.

The wire was twisted then cut and bent over. Both rows were done on the seat back, then the seat cover was pulled over the rest of the frame and hog ringed.

It really takes two people to pull this on tight and hog ring it.

The wire used is 0.051" stainless steel safety wire.

Next is to assemble the seat back panel.

This is the backside and the old colour still sprayed with some samples of paint we were experimenting with.

The outer bright work trim slides down and lips on the edge of the seat back panel. It's screwed in first then clipped.

Clip retains the inner portion of bright work to the steel window.

Completed seat back panel.

The next portion is to bend down the little spikes on the back of the seat frame holding the edge of the cover on.

Continued in next post.