Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

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Good deal! Looks good. Let us know how it works for you.

LockDoc

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

The first test of the die set revealed a problem. The top side was great (Photo #1) but the bottom was not correct. I used a 1/4" hole for my pilot which was too large. When the metal is deformed it stretches the hole and makes it larger. This in turn reduced the amount of material to make the square hole the correct size. (Photo #2). Basically I was able to push the bolt in with my thumb. Admittedly I used a thinner piece of stock than the actual material for the truck, but it was handy and as a proof of theory it did the job.
The cure was to make a pair of bushings and use a 3/16" pilot. I found some large 1/4" pop rivets removed the center pin, head on the end and cut them to length. Then drilled them to 3/16" on the lathe (To make sure the hole was centered) and I was ready for the second test run.
It was a success! I found a piece of a fender off a 90's Buick I scrapped that is near the same size as the angle. The jack on my "Toys are Us" press doesn't even start to work and the countersink is made. The photos show it all.
Some notes are I had to make sure the pilot holes in the stock were deburred completely or things don't work properly. And I used some anti-seize on the dies to allow the metal to slide easily.
The next step will be to file the holes square. I don't have a square file anywhere near the size I need so that will have to wait until tomorrow.

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More photos from previous posting.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Wow, that worked pretty slick. It shouldn't take too long to file them with a good square file.

LockDoc

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Thanks Doc. I have to admit it works better than I thought it would. It took me about 10 minutes to do the set of four including drilling the holes.

Saturday was POR-15 day. I used a brush and went around the perimeter of the cab where the wood bolts up along with the 3 underside support rails. For the front end I decided to treat it with POR-15 and leave it for now. After having read 04ls1GTO's thread on repairs to the step up area I decided that much work would exceed the amount of time I have at present. And thankfully the rust demon hasn't run wild there yet. I would like to thank him for his great thread. :metal:

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=724682

To optimize the coverage I got with the POR-15 on the front edge. Used a scraper to separate the top piece of metal from the bottom piece. The majority of the rust was on the top piece which was next to the wood. Now I had about 3/16" gap between the two pieces on the rear edge. When I applied the paint I loaded the brush with paint on one side and then scraped the paint off on the top piece. The paint then was heavily applied to the under side of the top piece. Then I used a air nozzle with only 10 psi of pressure to blow the paint to the front edge of the gap between the two pieces. I felt this would make sure I had as much paint coverage as possible. Seeing paint bubbling up from pinholes in the top piece helped confirm my theory. I would paint about 6 inches of the gap and then take some pliers and close the gap back together.
The idea being if I waited until the paint was dry to close the gap there would be areas that the paint might crack as the metal was bent. The paint still being wet should help seal the area and slow if not block further oxidization. There were no photos taken of this process but if anybody has questions I could get some after the process photos


I got some miscellaneous things done today. I replaced the replacement compressor mount I installed quite awhile ago. It worked fine with the original compressor but the new compressor weighs more and I could hear the mount flexing when going over bumps on the freeway. It wasn't really terribly noisy but I knew it would only be a matter of time until it flexed enough times to break. (Photo #1 old mount). Not to mention the fact that the old mount always seemed to be in the way when ever something needed to be done to the compressor or the tank. Photo #2 shows the new flat bar strap mounts I used and photo #3 shows the completed compressor mounting.
Last photo is the painted support rails.

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Another miscellaneous project for today was to replace the fuel fill tube with one I got from Mel at Classic Bowtie. Compare the old one with the new one! (Photo #1) No wonder it wouldn't seal. After I got the old one removed a couple of pieces of pot metal fell out of it helping confirm my theory that a locking cap had at some point been removed with excessive force.
Pretty straightforward job. 3 screws and two hose clamps. I was unable to find a Suburban specific gasket for between the back side of the fender and the mounting flange on the filler. I did find that an early Nova/ Chevy II fuel fill gasket is the same size but has a different bolt pattern. (Photo #2 see the small silver dots on the gasket showing the Suburban bolt pattern)
The third photo is the gasket done and the tube is sealed up so I can shove it into place and not get a bunch of crud in the tube/tank.
Of course my locking cap doesn't fit this nice undamaged tube! The tabs are two wide to fit the filler tube slots. But I know how to take it apart and modify it to work. Sounds like a good rainy day project.
I was also excited to start countersinking the replacement angle for the back edge of the plywood, but I found that the new piece I had made is not the right size. Uhhhggg!!!!
The top or long side of the angle is too short. It appears that they measured the bottom inside dimension and then transferred that measure to the top outside dimension. Or in other word's the top piece is about 3//32" too narrow. Which isn't really a deal breaker, but it isn't what I paid for, and if I was only replacing the angle and not the wood also there would be a odd gap.
So tomorrow it's back to the sheet metal shop. Yea!

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Coming right along.............

Screws came in yesterday, thanks a bunch. They look great.

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Nice job, it's a much better part. No more gas on the paint.

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You are welcome. I hit them with some cold galvanizing paint to keep them from rusting.

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Thank you. I'm hoping it will cut down on the fumes too. I haven't had a full tank of gas in forever. Right turns at speed would leak fuel at anything above 5/8 of a tank.

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It was a beautiful day so I got busy making sawdust. The plywood I am using is a marine plywood with non-skid coating material on the top bottom and sides. This means only the places I cut will not be coated. Not the cheapest material but it showed up on Craig's List so I went with it. I think that better quality plywood (no voids) is out there but I'm not sure if it would be better in this application.
The plywood came in 4x8 sheets so i will have to join two pieces together to make the floor. I went back and forth in my mind as to where to put the seam. Eventually I decided to put the seam as far to the driver's side as possible. Several factors lead to this decision. One was if the floor gets point loaded by something like an engine block being dropped, an unseamed area should withstand the load better than an area with a seam. The center of the floor is the most likely place for something like that to happen. Then as a secondary advantage it will be easier for me to fit up the driver's side cutouts if I'm not having to test fit a piece that is 3 foot wide. And lastly having a larger piece left over will let me use it for some steps on the front porch. So good decision or bad decision only time will tell.
After lots of measurements to make sure I didn't make myself angry right off the start I did the easy cut first. (Photo #1) Since the wood is coated on all sides I had to make a skim pass with a router on one of the long edges to make sure that the seam will have clean wood for the glue to adhere to.
Then I laid out the dimensions of the piece I just cut on the old floor piece. Once it was laid out. (Photo #2 silver line on old plywood) It was fairly easy to get the dimension of the smaller piece for the driver' side using a straight edge on the few remaining spots that had not rotted away. After cutting the smaller piece I clamped it under the old floor so I can do the layout for the wheel well and fuel fill. As you can see there is a lot of wood missing. (Photos # 2) Most of the missing areas were swept up after removal. It just fell into dust and splinters.
In order to make the wheel well I traced the one good end on to some corrugated plastic and cut a pattern. (Photo #3) Then I flipped the pattern and drew the outline on the new wood. (Photo #4)
One side note the coating material on the plywood is quite rough and hard to make pencil marks on. It just eats the lead on the pencil so the line gets fatter the farther you go. So the line is not very accurate. I tried scribing lines but found that it was difficult to see the line and even more difficult to make the scribe stay on the straight edge. I ended up using a fine ball point pen and going slow to get a reasonable line.

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The fuel fill cut out took more quite a bit more figuring to make the pattern. I started out making a pattern of the metal cover's footprint by cutting a notch in the pattern board and holding it in place against the inner fender well. Then tracing the half circle with a Sharpie.
I then measured the width of the bolt flange on the fuel fill cover. It was 1" 7/16" wide. I laid out this measurement on each sided of the pattern (Silver writing). I measured the distance between the two marks and divided that number by 2 to get the radius of the inside of the fuel fill cover.
As there was only a small bit of the fuel fill cut out left in the old wood I took a compass and put the point on one end of the remaining wood and made an arc. I did the same on the other end. (Photo #2) The point the two arcs met was my center point for the radius of the cut out. Once the arc was drawn I connected the ends to the edge with a tri-square.
Once the two cutouts were laid out I did some measuring to compare my layout to the inside of the truck. Everything seemed to jive so I made the cuts. And after a bit of sanding to clean things up I slid the new piece into the cab and with a couple of taps it was in place. (Photo #3 & 4)

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Next step was to joint the two pieces together. I used little wood Dominos to stiffen the joint and to help line things up when glueing the pieces together. Liberal application of glue on the joint before assembly. Tapping the two pieces together and clamping them together and down to stiffeners to keep things flat.

Earlier I had stated I was going to wait until the floor was reassembled to get the new rear shocks. But after taking a second look at the suspension I realized that it wasn't going to make a difference as the bumpstops didn't deform when I bounced on the tailgate. So the shocks got installed. Here is a photo of the new shocks installed in their more vertical position.

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Looks nice, that plywood was in tough shape

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Thanks. It didn't look nearly that bad before I started. At this point I'm pretty sure that if I had gone down 5 miles of bad washboard dirt road I wouldn't of had a floor when I stopped. :lol:

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Maybe someone could help me as I don't have much of a pattern left. (See photo before it fell apart during disassembly) In regards to the "Key" piece that goes in the front passenger side corner. From what I have been able to learn from some of Vectorit's posts (Thank you sir!) is the piece has a tongue or groove that has a mate on the main piece. It makes sense to me for the groove to be on the main piece and the tongue on the "Key" piece. If this is true then how long is the groove on the main piece? Do I need to make it twice as long as the "Key" piece or is there enough wiggle room to only have as much groove as the"Key" needs?

And the second inquiry is about the blue sheet metal piece in the photo is there suppost to be a corresponding piece on the driver's side too?
Thank you in advance.

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I guess I have been asleep at the wheel on your floor postings. Had I realized your wood was in that bad a shape I could have made you a paper pattern of the entire floor and sent it to ya.

To answer your wood groove question the groove in the main floor section is just about an inch longer than the tongue in the edge board. Here are a few pics, let me know if you need any more or measurements on anything. I have two complete floors sitting here that are pretty complete.

As far as the metal strips they hold the original side panels from going to far in. they should be all the way around the floor perimeter anywhere the panels make contact. I have a whole bunch of extras if needed either for purchase or just for measurements. Probably less costly just to bend some up vs shipping cross country.

Richard

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Once again thank you Richard.

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I did a couple of final prep items before the floor gets reinstalled. Rebent one of the fuel line lines from the tank. Inspection of the body mounts showed the lower side has deformed (photo #1). I will back up the mount with these perfectly sized little plates I had sitting around and that should fix the deformation. I also took sometime to pressurize the air system and look for leaks. I did find what appeared to be a defective push on fitting fortunately I had a spare used one and it solved the problem.
I drilled as many holes as I could off of the old wood. 26 out of 56 total. Then I clamped the underside supports down and lined them up with holes that I had located from the old wood and drilled them. Now I have 34 holes done!
In order to get the holes as accurate as possible I made some bushings that fit the holes in the old wood that kept the drill bit centered in the hole. For the body mount bolt washer I inserted the bolt with the washer on it and traced the washer. (Photo #2). I had drilled the same size hole in a piece of scrap wood to make a jig then clamped it over the traced washer. (Photo #3 I marked the depth of cut with a Sharpie on the outside of the hole saw. In addition I left the plug I had previously drilled in the scrap piece inside of the hole saw as a safety to make sure I didn't accidentally drill too deep. (Photo #4)
Photo #5 shows the finished washer hole with the offset for the body mount bolt.

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Late last night my buddy Karl came by and this (Photo #1 ) became this (Photo #2)! :metal:
I spent this morning wrestling the 2 back underside supports into position. This became quite the battle until it dawned on me that I had replaced the body bushings and had tightened them down on 50 year old rotting wood. Once I had loosened the 6 mounts for the rear of the cab and jacked it up 1/4" everything easily slid into place.
I forgot to get photos of the router work to get the "Key" piece to fit up properly. I used a tongue and groove bit set to try and match the factory work. Thanks to Richard2717 for confirming how the factory did it as I didn't have much to go by. (Photo #3). It took me a little while to figure out what was supposed to be bolted to the indented rectangle on the bottom edge, but finally I realized that was the end of the front underside support. ( Which actually is the second row seat and seat belt plate and not a support piece.) No wonder I had to loosen the body bolts with that much crush in the wood.
The last photos are the "Key" piece.

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I drilled out one of the old bolts to make a bushing to drill the rest of the perimeter holes. The idea is to keep the drill bit from damaging the new paint. In order to finish the holes I will need to get a extra long bit to do the bolts along the fender wells.
The last steps of making the "Key" piece were started. Using more of the corrugated plastic board I made a pattern. (Photos #1 & 2). Then it was a matter of transfering the pattern to piece I had previously started. And the last photo is the finished "Key.

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Good weather today so I got the rear angle piece drilled, countersunk, and painted. First step was to make another drill guide out of one of the old bolts to be sure I was getting a centered hole drilled in the square hole. As I marked the holes from the old piece I noticed that they are not all the same distance apart from each other. From the right the first four holes are the same distance apart. Then there is an odd distance and the last two holes are yet a different distance apart. Also the first hole on the right is not countersunk and is for a 5/16" carriage head. The first picture shows the old piece upside down on the new piece with the drill guide. The second photo shows the set up to drill the last holes. The arrow shows the index pin used to ensure everything stayed lined up as the holes were drilled.
Once marked I drilled each of the countersunk holes with a 3/16" drill and then used the countersink die I fabricated earlier. On this material the countersinks were not as crisp as before but completely acceptable to me. (Photos #3 & 4)
One side note about the countersinks is that they do cause the angle to get a slight curve to it. The last photo is supposed to illustrate that.

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I ran a tap through all the holes that have fixed nuts in the spare tire well. When I was wire wheeling and chasing the threads on the bolts for the spare tire well I was pleased to see all the bolts had a good coating of POR-15 on the end of the bolt. (Photo #1) This was a result of the void painting I did during the first pages of this repair thread. It was one of those things that you hope it did what you wanted it to but unless you cut it apart you don't know for sure.
Then I had to countersink the holes in the new plywood so the rear angle would sit flush. I couldn't find any countersink bits that matched the angle of the countersinks. So to get as close of a fit as possible it was mostly carved by hand. The first step was to draw the outside dimension. (Photo 2 red circle) Then drill a smaller countersink of the wrong angle to the needed depth. (Photo 2 green circle) Then I used a box knife to carve the rest to the proper shape. (Photo #2 blue circle). Photo three is the best photo I got of a finished countersink. It's not much of a picture. The same goes for photo four. It is the countersink bit that has too steep of an angle. From what I was able to find locally countersink bits all seem to be 45 degrees and the countersink on the rear angle is about 35 degrees.
One last step was to shave the sharp 90 degree edge off the corner of the plywood. The angle doesn't have a matching sharp bend. It is more of a very small radius. To get the angle to fit flush the top edge needs to be rounded off. I rounded the edge with a couple of passes with a small block plane. My first try was to sand it off with some 150 grit sandpaper, but the non-skid coating just laughed at my sandpaper.

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Long day yesterday on the C-10 Ab Blaster. :lol: With all the pieces finished it was time to bolt it all down. First thing to do was jack the body back up off the mounts about 1/2" in the rear. This allows the underside support channels to be moved about easily. Then it was time to put bolts in all the holes (with the nuts and washers loose) and make sure everything lined up. Then I installed the spare tire well with the bolts loose.

For the most part things went well, a couple of holes weren't perfect and I had to run a drill down to get things to line up. The biggest error was on the rear angle piece. The non countersunk hole on the passenger side has a square hole and it has to line up with a square hole in the spare tire well. Not only was I off in location I was 45 degrees off in orientation. (Photo #1 red arrow) I didn't realize the two holes shared a bolt. (The green piece needs to slide down so all three holes line up) huh

Now the main piece of the floor was located it was time to test fit the "Key". It is supposed to slide from inside the fender well forward in a groove in the main piece and a sheet metal channel on the outboard side. Hopefully the photos will explain this better than I am. The last photo shows it in installed. I did have a bit of modification to the Key as there was an odd bit of sheet metal in the outboard channel that interfered with how the piece fit. I'm assuming it was some poor fit up issue from when the truck was assembled. Adding to my feelings that I have a Monday or a Friday truck. Ten minutes with a chisel and it was good to go.

After everything was finally right so I worked my way around (like it appeared the factory did) inside of the perimeter applying the sealer. I used Dap 230 in Almond as it seemed to be a close match to the surface color of the plywood. By prying the flange up with a thin pry bar it was easy to squirt the sealer in the gap. The spare tire well got sealer on all seams. When I did the final install on the " Key" I put the sealer on the lower half of the tongue and groove. I didn't want it too "glued down" if I ever have to remove it. I also coated the insides of the holes for the underside support channels and the holes for the body mount bolts with the sealer.

Then it was time to dive underneath and tighten all the nuts. It was time consuming but it sure was nice to have the nice light colored floor. It makes it so much easier to see things from below. Too bad it won't stay that way.
I did manage to twist off one of the 1/4-20 wide head carriage bolts. I know I bought a spare of each bolt but it was nowhere to be found when I needed it.
Now the wood was in place I replaced the body mounts and dropped the body back down on the frame and tightened the bolts up. My bright idea to put a doubler on the back of the lower half of the mounts fell through as the bolts were not long enough. I did find some extra heavy duty thick washers to replace the ones the mounts came with.

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More photos of the installed floor.

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You may have noticed that I did not have the front angle piece installed. That's because I am also replacing the factory second row seat with a second row seat out of a square body Burban.
Here are some photos of the squarebody seats as I removed them.
The idea is to be able to haul stuff like plywood without having to remove the second row seat and stash it somewhere when I need the extra cargo space. Just fold the seat bottoms forward and the seat backs flop forward and are flush with the rear floor.

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First off the new seat needed to be centered in the truck. (Photo #1) When I measured the width of the seat backs when mounted on hinge, the latch loops stuck out too far. About 65 1/2 inches and the door frames (real and imaginary) are only 65 1/16 inches (Photos #2 & 3) Fortunately the loops have about 7/16" of shims under each side and after they were removed the seat backs would then fit between the door frames. (Photo #4)

Now that I knew the seats would fit I measured the hinge and found it's center point. Then I measured the distance between the door frames and marked the center point on the edge of the new floor just before the drop off. I then lined the two center points up and screwed the hinge down with two small screws. I now needed to know the exact center between the two seat backs so I could line up the center base piece that the seat bottom bases sit on. By measuring the gap between the two pieces of the hinge for the backs (see photo #1)
I now was able to mark the floor knowing the center base would be centered on that mark. There was a bit of head scratching as the center base piece is in now way square or true. So a close approximation of its center line was decided on. And that was lined up with the mark on the floor. (Last photo red arrow)

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Now the problem is making the center base actually bolt to the floor. Our Burbans have a pair of bumps in the floor pan for body mount bushings and the one on the passenger side is where the base needs to bolt down. (Photo #1).
Photos #2 & 3 show the bump and the center base and the issue of getting it bolted down. The last photo shows the area to be removed on the right hand side of the photo.

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Looks like the new floor should quiet things down a little bit.

After you remove the metal on the seat bracket can you weld a flat plate across that area?

Lookin' good.....

LockDoc

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Thanks Leon. Quieter would be good. I can hear a difference when I shut the doors at this point. I hopefully will get it out on a test run today or tomorrow.
Here is what it looks like trimmed off. (#1 photo) And I made this little block to bolt to the floor and to the bolt hole on the bottom. (#2 photo)
I hadn't planned on welding a plate. I only see the bracket as holding the seat base up. Am I missing something?

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I don't think you are missing anything. That block should make it plenty sturdy. That's all I was thinking about.

LockDoc

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Oh good! There is also a yet to be mentioned (or photographed) doubler plate on the bottom of the floorboard.

I made an interesting discovery today on the WMB. Someone in the past appears to have started to install a set of square body second row seats. I first noticed that some of the holes I drilled to install the seat back hinge were already drilled through the front flange. There were a bunch of holes in the flange so I chalked it up as lucky.

Then once I had marked the holes for the center base I noticed there were two existing holes that matched the holes I had marked with the exception of being 3/4" closer to the center of the truck. (Photo #1 green lines point to the holes I need to drill) When I looked at the area where the outboard latches attach there were two holes on each side that matched 2 of the 3 holes for the latch. (Photo #2).

So my first thought was "Did I screw up my lay out?". But after remeasuring things were fine. So I thought maybe they had slid the seat to the drivers side 3/4 of an inch. That theory fell apart as the seat's loop for the upper latch won't clear the 4th door frame. So I went ahead and drilled the holes for the center base and bolted it on.

Next step was to drill and mount the latch on the passenger side. To get the spacing I measured the seat base. There were easy to see rubber marks on it. I came up with 16.5 inches. Long story short the passenger side latch bolted right to the existing holes perfectly. I ran out of time to check the driver's side but I'm hoping. With the center being offset the bumper would have missed the seat base on my set of seats. There maybe different seat dimensions over the years or some PO just drilled it wrong.
The funny thing is other than the parts on the step there doesn't seem to have been any other holes drilled for the rest to the seats. Maybe they gave up after things didn't fit right who knows. I'm just glad for the free holes at this point.

I got some side plates made for the upper latches. ( Photo #3 & 4) I went with 14 guage but I may regret not using 12 guage. My concern at the time was not spacing the chrome trim for the side panels too far out. For which the 14 guage is working well, but I may have to put a stiffener behind each side. Once things are all together I will be able to make that call.
Last photo is the end of day, hinge installed, and two mounts in.

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One of the hinge bolts when through in a bad spot and hit part of the body support. (Photo #1 It's a poor picture but hopefully everyone can see the problem) This was one of the previously drilled holes. I remember it as it had a 5/16" lag bolt screwed into it. Uhggg! I will have to get in there somehow and grind a flat spot for the nut to sit.

If you ever need to tighten up the bolts across the front and you have no help you need one of these. (Photos #2 & 3). I took a short 3/8" extension and on the square end ground two of the flats so a 3/8" wrench fit snugly. Then a flat washer (to hold the spring against the wrench) between the extension and the socket. The wood block compresses the spring and it holds the socket on the fastener. The wrench hits the body and I was able to tighten the bolts by hand from above. I tried to use an impact but it just blew things apart underneath. It actually worked far better than I expected it to. :lol:

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Good ole American ingenuity...:)

LockDoc

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And some late night desperation.

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Well my free holes turned against me. Once I got the center and both outside latches bolted down it was clear that the old holes were of no use. Not only were they too high the 4th door side was really cockeyed. (Photos #1 & 2).

I took the two latches and screwed them to a straight board in the correct spacing. (Photo #3) Then I only had to get the board lined up on the center base and make sure each end was the same height to mark the holes. Photo four shows everything as it should be, all nice and lined up. :mm:
The worst part of the previous attempt to put the square body seats in is that some FO ( Future Owner) will look at all the holes (Photo #5) and wonder if the PO who installed the seats knew what a tape measure was? :lol:

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Now the lower side was set up time to finish the side plates and the seat back latches. I made some little angle iron pieces that are held down by a pair of the carriage bolts for the floor. (Photo #1)

The plate is held in position with three 1/4-20 screws on the bottom and 5 sheet metal screws on the top. The plate goes under the trim for the side panels.

I then bolted the larger of the two seat backs in position so I could position the latch for it. I used a angle meter to set the latch position. I measured the angle of the back of the factory front seat and came up with 70 degrees so that is the number I will use for the second row. Getting the latch positioned was straight forward. I just laid the seats back to slightly more than the 70* the front was. ( I am planning on getting new rubber bumpers so that should make it right at 70*.) I marked the back hole of the latch while holding the seat at the correct angle. Then I drilled that hole and reassembled to make sure it was correct then marked the outline of the latch. After removal of the plate I drilled the last two holes and reinstalled the plate with the latch mounted.

Getting the latch to work was much more work. Since I removed the spacers under the loop for the latch the latch wouldn't fit under the loop. (Photo #2) It took at least five tries to get the latch to work. Disassemble the latch, grind the hook a little, reassemble latch, bolt to the plate, lay seat back, stare at seat latch, remove latch, and repeat as necessary. I went slow as I didn't have any spare parts for the latches. I tried to add one of the shims to get things to work but then the loop hit the latch base. Anyway photo #3 shows how much material I removed to get it to work. See the faint blue outline of the unmodified hook under the modified hook.
Photo #3 shows the latch mounted and photo #4 shows the mounted latch and the seat back with the angle meter.

As much as I love the 3 door life. This particular project has tried my 3 door patience deeply. I no longer refer to the sides as the passenger or the driver's side. It's now the easy side and the HARD side. :lol:

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When you get all of the extra holes welded up and ground down no-one will ever know.

I have a lot of patience but I think I would have had the cutting torch out a long time ago....:)

LockDoc

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I think with the rust on the top of the same piece that replacement may be the better choice. I will have to look closely at 04ls1GTO's thread on replacement and make a plan.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Now the hard side seat back was done its on to the easy side. Once bolted to the hinge it was apparent there was an alignment problem. The gap between the two seat backs was 7/8" at the bottom and 1 & 3/16" at the top. (Photo #1) The fix was to elongate the holes in the hinge to allow the seat back to sit straight. (Photo #2) This may have been the result of using seats from one Burban and the hinge from another. (Although the holes in both hinges and seat backs don't have the best alignment. Some of that "Great GM feeling" from the seventies) The hinge that came with the seats was tweaked pretty bad where the seat backs meet is why I ended up getting a second one.

Now the seat sat straight the next issue was the latch loop on the seat back wouldn't clear the latch base. (Photo #3). The photo makes it look worse than it was. My fix for this was to grind the bottom of the latch base down. A minute on the belt grinder was all that was needed as the base is aluminum. (Photo #4). I looked to see if I had mounted the seat backs sightly more to the driver's side if the loop would have cleared. There was only an 1/8"-3/16" of room on the other side and it might have been enough, but then the loop would have rubbed the door panel when you put seat back down. I decided this is the better trade off.

After getting the base to clear I had to modify the hook in the latch the way I did the other side. The last photo shows how I needed to hook to sit in the latch to work correctly. It was just a matter of marking and drilling the holes to bolt the latch down and this side of the seat back was done.