Seat Recover

 My front seats have been grubby since I acquired the car, and despite my best efforts there's quite a bit of dog hair still stuck to them--- and I don't have a dog.

Probably the worst thing though is that the drivers seat in particular feels more like a hammock and it sags as you sink into it. I've ordered a new foam and diaphragm to try and tighten it all up but I'd not got around to dealing with it until my cleaning of the headliner meant that grubby, stained- and now bleached - seats were just going too far. Its time they had attention. I decided to remove the driver's seat and dismantle it for a rebuild. I'm starting with the driver's seat and hoping this is the only one I need to do.

Rhs Seat front runner mount and slider ratchet control. seen from footwell

Rear seat mounting bolt protruding through the weld nut viewed from under the car.

Drivers seat- photos better than it looks although bagginess of fabric is obvious. 

To remove the seats slide them all the way backwards and release the 11mm bolts that hold the runners to the car.

The front bolts screw into the chassis cross member and shouldn't be rusted in. The two bolts and their shake-proof washers are shown below.

Slide the seat all the way forward- note that the seat belt talk does obstruct the seat so you'll need to carefully feed it back beside the seat- compress the seat foam. You can also swivel the chair away from the stalk if the front bolts are out.

Inboard rear mountings remain hidden under the seat  so a bit fiddly.

Outboard mounting bolts visible

The rear bolts pass through weld nuts in the floor and protrude underneath the car. Clean  and oil the projecting threads before unscrewing the bolts.

 

Rear bolts removed, rusting section indicates thread protruding below the car.

Once 4 bolts removed the seat lifts out. The alloy running slides on the inboard (left) side may fall off whilst the outboard (right) side remains attached via the ratchet lever.

This reveals the wooden packing pieces beneath and the 4 metal bolt spacers in it 

The carpet around the base of the handbrake was a bit scrambled but brake lever and lever switch present. I de-fluffed them. Not sure what the contact is but it seems secure

Looking underneath the seat at the sliding rail rear...

.. and front with slide ratchet lever

I found there were 4 fabric clips per side.

... and another 4 across the back.

To separate the back support from the seat section unscrew the crosshead screws holding the plastic covers at the base of the back section. 

You'll need to compress the seat foam a little to remove the covers.

...and remove the covers

The nut inside the reclining joint isn't captive, so hold that with a spanner as you loosen the bolt. Note that there are two washers on this fastening- a smaller washer below the bolt head and a larger slip washer between the two sections of the seat.

 

Seat recline fastening- note washer sandwiched between the two seat lugs and one washer under the bolt head.

Fastener removed and reassembled to show both washers.

The seat fabric is secured with these vicious fabric clips. If you have any intention of reusing your cover then you must release these carefully. They have teeth that dig in to the fabric and if either clip or fabric is pulled before they are disengaged the fabric will tear. I lever up a free end with  fine screwdriver to raise and release the teeth. One the teeth are out of the fabric the clip can be slipped back to release the fabric. Start at one edge and then the fabric will be more easily slipped out from the subsequent clips once the teeth have been disengaged.

Carefully lever up the free end of the clip to pull the teeth out of the fabric before levering the clip back.

The seat-cover and foam can then be lifted off. I was surprised that my seat had webbing straps not a diaphragm but apparently this is period correct- diaphragms were phased out earlier. Looking at this seat there are only 4 cross straps- my replacement comes with 5. They are more closely spaced to the rear of the seat where it takes most weight.

The frame can be removed once all the clips are out.

Frame and webbing removed from foam

Once the foam is separated the cover should just peel off the foam. I noticed there are sections of hessian around the edges- presumably to reinforce it. I've found bits of this under the seat from time to time so its been falling apart for a while. I'm not sure how these should go  but I've ordered some hessian strip to replace the worn and vanished pieces.

Stray pieces of hessian under the seat.

Hessian reinforcement at the rear corners.

Peeling the cover off showed that it had been glued to the top of the foam. I peeled carefully to avoid tearing the cover and separated it from the foam.

Once clear, the glued areas showed up as dark areas on the foam 

.

Cover detached and will be gently hand washed before refitting.

Cover now free

There is some damage to the piping which I'll try to repair using an insert

two breaks in piping at the front of the seat cover.

I removed the webbing frame by pulling the hooks.

... and detached the runners at the cross head screws (3 per runner). Again these aren't weld nuts so you have to hold the upper nut as you unscrew the crosshead.

Note raised stop stud on the rear of the ratchet handle-side slider

This is not fitted to the other side

Detaching the slider strips.

Once removed the frame could be wire brushed and degreased

Prior to respraying in hampered black finish. This went on straight over the brushed rust and covered well v pleased with the effect.

The new "diaphragm" turned out to be webbing- apparently correct for the year. However it had obviously stretched so I decided to augment it by reusing both the 2 fore/aft webs and the front 2 cross webs (which stretch least) from the old seat support. This should give  bit of help in supporting my enormous bulk but I'll need to modify the frame to accept the extra straps.

New frame- I added the two front/rear straps each side of the two new ones.

I slipped the old front/rear straps, one either side of the 2 new ones, and then slid the 2 old seat straps up to the front.

I could then add the new webs behind them. The new webs come with a split and free hooks. You need to hook the new hook through the split and catch the wire frame with it. Sounds daft,  but don't forget to get all the hooks and strap seam facing the same way.

New strap slipped onto frame- note split in the end.

Hook to be slipped into the split in order to catch the wire frame in the smaller end.

Hook inserted.

I gave a lot of thought to how the webbing should be interwoven- or even if it should be interwoven at all! This is my final pattern but I suspect that there are dozens of ways to do this. I'm trying to support the new webs to spread the load, using the older webs to limit the stretch once the new ones have taken the weight.

Since I'm reusing 4 old straps in total I'll need new holes in the frame for their hooks. The seat frame already has 4 hooks at the front but will need 2 more at the rear and two on each side.

I drilled new holes (5mm)  on the back 60mm inboard from each of the existing holes. I also drilled two new holes in the rear frame cross member to accept the extra front/rear straps.

New holes drilled in seat frame

I could then restring the frame. This is a bit tricky as there's quite a bit of tension required.

Frame with extra holes to sides and rear- the corner holes were previously unused but now are fitted with the reused front/rear straps.

Using the existing but previously unused front corner holes gives a pleasing angle to the longitudinal straps. I suspect I should have added the reused seat cross straps at the rear not the front- but hey its done now and I've still got as much if not more support than original.

I had already washed the seat cover gently in Persil liquid detergent and allowed it to dry. I could now look at the damaged piping and any remaining dirt.

I repaired the piping using a nozzle tube from a WD40 spray. It needed to be rubbed with abrasive paper as it was rotated until to reduce the width to a tight sliding fit.  I could then slip one end into the break in the piping, trim it and insert the other end to hold the piping back together. It would obviously be better to use black not yellow tube, 🙄 and maybe glue it in. I reasoned the fit was quite tight and didn't want to risk glue stains on the seat so I left it unglued. We'll see how it goes.

Insert the WD40 spray tube and trim it

Use the inserted tube to fit across the split.

And push the broken piping back together.

At this stage the repair looks good. The seat was still stained- it looked like oily hands on the raised edges. I found I could remove this very satisfactorily using K2 Velor car upholstery cleaner- spray one, brush in, blot off- repeat. I found it to be quite effective.

Finally I found a small tear in the vinyl side panel facing the transmission tunnel. I think this is where the seatbelt stalk has been trapped. I patched it from the rear with a spare piece of vinyl.

Rebuilding the seat.

The old foam had split along the lines of the webbing frame on both sides. There are remnants of hessian attached to this seat- but having looked at various Youtube videos, there is no real explanation for it and hessian isn't described unless fitting foam over a steel "bedspread" type frame. However, hessian (US Burlap)  is used more generally in furniture  to protect foam from the webbing and metal hooks. I also found that older MGBs and Midgets featured a full hessian layer under the foam, presumably for the same purpose. This seems to have been reduced to short sections (as a cost cutting measure?) later on but the splits in my old foam suggest this isn't 100% effective. I decided to use some new hessian between the foam and the webbing frame.. 

Split in foam along the line of the webbing frame...

 and on the opposite side

I bought 1m of 3" Hessian strip and cut this into  strips along the sides of the foam.

I aligned the hessian strip to the foam edge, rotated it back...

... and then sprayed both the hessian upper surface and the foam exposed at the side. Allow the adhesive to flash off for 5 min...

... and then rotated the hessian back onto the glued area to fix it down.

I trimmed the strips to follow the edge of the foam. X

 and then sprayed both the hessian upper surface and the exposed foam at the side. Allow the adhesive to flash off for 5 min..

Strips of hessian stuck to foam base

The hessian now covers the metal hooks and frame wire.

I could then align the foam and refit the cover- I sprayed the foam in the pattern discussed above and then tried to attach the cover. This is the most difficult bit of the  whole operation because with this design there is no definite "seat" section in the cover to locate the cover onto the foam. It is important to locate the cover such that (in my case) the deckchair stripes are not only straight- but also that they will align with the stripes on the reclining back section of the chair. You also need to work out all the kinks and creases in the cover so that it sits flat on the foam when this is achieved. This is very difficult and really can't be done if the foam is glued as this prevents fine movements to align to foam after the cover has been applied to the foam. If I was doing this job again I wouldn't glue at this stage.

Finally, the cover needs to be secured to the seat frame tubes with the seat cover clips- these clips are the invention of the devil! Great care needs to be taken when fitting them. Firstly, its very important that the teeth grip the fabric only above the metal seat tubes where the fabric is supported and can be sandwiched between the tube and clip. If the clips are off the seat tube and engaged with unsupported fabric then they will puncture and rip it. Secondly, although the clips have teeth at both ends- it seems to me really important that only one end of the clip contacts the fabric and the other end should contact the bare metal of the tube. If both ends grip the fabric then it will not be possible to push the clip home against the seat frame tube because the teeth are trying to stretch the fabric between them. This means that the cover will need to be positioned/trimmed so that it doesn't fold all the way around the seat frame tubes. Positioned like this, the end in contact with the metal can slip around/over the seat tube and clip into place while the end embedded in the fabric need not move at all. If the seat cover is wrapped too far around the seat tube both ends of the clip will be gripping the fabric. 

This is all quite difficult to arrange, and if you get it wrong you may make additional holes in the seatcover as removing the clips to adjust is always a risk. The seat is then reassembled and refitted as the reverse of the dismantling.