help with my seat

[chris j]

I want to use my original seat in my truck but the seat bottom is in bad shape, the back and frame are ok and will just need to be reupholstered. How do I rebuild the seat? or is it something I will need to have done.

[Rambow]

First... What year truck are you talking about

When you say the seat bottom is in bad shape, do you mean the cover, or the way it feels when you sit on it (indicating broken springs, etc etc)

YOu can do it yourself if you like, its not rocket science- but you will need to look carefully at what it needs so you really do fix it, and don't just cover up a problem with new covers.

First think you want to do is to pull the seat and take a look at the bottom side to determine the condition.

If you have and AD or TF truck, the seat bottom has coil springs in it- and these are isolated from each other with small coil springs. Usually the large coils don't break- but the small separater coils stretch out or do break- these can be replaced with generic springs... should be able to get a bunch on the internet and stretch them as needed.

Next you need to look at the padding layer. These seats came originally with a layer of burlap over the springs, followed by a think layer of horsehair/jute padding. This was followed with a thick cotton pad (there was no seat foam in the 50's)

Burlap and jute padding is easy to get- any fabric store will have the burlap, and the jute pad is the same as a fabric carpet pad (used with office berber type carpets). These are important because they protect the cotton from getting chewed up by the spring movement.

The cotton pad, you can either replace with new cotton batting, or you can buy generic sheet foam and use that (i'd recommend 2 1" sheets, a single 2" sheet will be hard to wrap around the edges.

The TF seats used these little metal clips to hold the cover on, so you'll need to get some of those. LMC truck sells them, so do a few otehr places.

I've found that when installing those clips- i press them onto a screwdriver shaft (to stretch them out, then press them into place- If you just try to press on, they'll cut the vinyl.

LMC truck, Classic industries both sell stock style covers in several different patterns and colors to suit your needs.

[chris j]

Thanks Rambo it is out of a 50 gmc it is the springs that are bad. Many are broken and missing the small cconnecting springs. I will try what you suggested to rebuild them and then recover the seat.

[Rambow]

If the larger springs are broken i may have a source for replacements... not positive though will have to check the wire guage.