I had grand plans of doing electrolysis rust removal on these. Obtained a bin big enough to fully submerge the seats even... but alas, the idea of powerwashing & scrubing them after the process go the better of me and I dropped them off at my local sand blasters shop and picked them up a few days later. I really hate scrubbing.

Anyway- Now we can see what we have left.
As expected the edgewires on the upeprs and lowers are darn near toast. Most of the springs themselves are actually saveable, though a few may need splicing with new.

There are some thin spots and rusted through spots on the frames themselves. I'll inspect them closer and decide if they need to be welded up or can just be cleaned up and left alone.

..To be continued

 

Good lord, they look like the captains chairs from the Titanic! But I'll be following to see how you resurrect them, as I know you will!

 

Will be interesting to see.

Fortunately mine looked factory line fresh compared to these jewels in the rough.

 

Ben, I have had them as bad as that before. Bought a set off ebay that was local to me. Learned my lesson well on that set. Think the guy stored them in a 55 gallon drum of salt water. I could care less what the covers look like. Show me the springs and frames.

 

Yup yup yup. i've actually seen much worse than these too, at least the frames for these are mostly solid... I've had a couple come through rusted so bad i could not even get the frames apart, much less save them.

My goal here is to show that even with nasty rusty seats like these- they can be repaired and restored by ANYONE with basic tools and supplies.

You don't NEED to spend $$$ buying reproduction spring assemblies, or pay a shop to do any of this stuff.

I'll post up some more pics tonight and the next couple days as I go along...

I want these done and in my car by the end of this weekend, so I won't keep you guys waiting ;-)

 

I am doing a set that started out just like those, Mouse nest city..
At least you can get all of the springs you need.
I did the electrolysis on them too, really cleans them up nice.

 

I'm going to follow this one closely. I bought 3 seats recently. 1 67 passenger seat and a pair of 66 seats that the passenger seat is pretty rusty. Fortunately I bought the seats with a few other parts, just sold the other parts and brought my cost of the 3 seats to $40. So I can afford to sink a few bucks into making a pair out of the 3 seats. Jim

 

Allright- before i go to far... Tools of the trade... for anyone curious what it takes to do this... this is it

That tool at the bottom is the one that makes everything possible. That is a wire bender and allows me to bend up the 9ga edgewire however i need.

Oh yeah... and a pile of zigzag spring. 9ga and 11ga.

The yellow handled things are spring bending paddles that make flattening and forming the springs into their specific shapes possible.

The edgewire and springs are all held together with steel spring clamps which are closed up with a pair of pliers.

Everything else is all basic hand tools.

Continued...

 

So last night (before i posted this) i actually completed repairs to the lower cushions, but i wasn't very good about taking pics during the repair process... but you can see the results here:

The side edgewires were horribly pitted, so i formed up all new ones from the back of the frame up to their connection point to the springs near the front

While the side support springs were not broken, i always change them out and switch to a beefier 9ga spring vs the original 11ga, which i find adds more support at the bolsters without increasing the center stiffness.

ANother detail shot showing the rear edge corners and new side edgewire joined.

The dark grey springs are all new replacing pitted or cracked originals.

The springs in the rear of this seat were still intact but badly pitted. I opted to replace the two center ones with new, here they are shown spliced (clamped) onto the original midway up the seat. I'm not real happy with how my cross bar at the rear turned out, i may take it back off and replace it with a straight rod instead.

Detail shot at the front showing the side edgewire joining back onto the springs in the original location.

To be Continued...

 

As i mentioned before, the upper cushions are in pretty rough shape. The whole edgewire is really badly pitted and whittled down by rust... on one cushion the whole bottom edge was actually rusted away and every spring broken at the bottom edge.

So... here we go.

I started with bending up new center 11ga springs to be spliced in for both seats.
You will notice that i'm not replacing the whole spring. There is no need to, the rest of the spring itself is in decent shape and isn't really under much stress- unlike the bottom edge springs which do all the supporting.

All 5 bottom springs repaired, and the edgewire fully removed.

the separated edgewire

Cont...

 

The springs supporting the assembly at the two top outer positions were pitted and not supporting evenly, so i removed the clamps holding them, and formed up new ones

Back to the edgewire... This is actually two hoops that clamp onto each other and onto the springs at various spots to form up the whole spring assembly..

And, through the magic of the internet-

That was actually about 45mins worth of work carefully measuring and bending an 8ft long 9ga rod.

Some tweaking will need to be done in place, but its extremely close on all measurements.

And we end tonight with the new lower edgewire hoop installed on the spring assembly

The upper hoop is a lot shorter (only a 5ft peice of rod needed for it) and easier to form up, so i will get that done tomorrow night then move onto the actual recovering phase.

 

Awesome thread! Thanks for posting. I worried about the internal condition of the seats that came with my 67 Chevelle. Recently one of the strato buckets became exposed to the elements and bees made a nest in it. Exterminating them required me removing the upholstery. I was shocked at how little is left of the lower springs. The lower seat frame is a bit rotted as well. My seats are so much worse than what you started with. Not sure if it's worth trying to fix. I'll be watching your posts with interest.

 

Thanks for your post, great thread....:thumbsup:

A customer dropped off a pair of '71 Chevelle buckets just like those last week. Genuine barn find seats for which he paid $600!

I could tell immediately from the stink what was inside. Wore a respirator and my oldest set of oil-change clothes to tear them down (outside the shop), then took a shower right after that. They were even worse than the 2nd and 3rd pics in your post #1. The seat frames cleaned up pretty well, but now I'm going through the process of bending new spring sections just like you are.

On the flip side, 2 days ago I bought a pair of '64-65 A-body buckets for $200 with nasty upholstery, but perfect frames and springs. NO repair needed, not even the side bolster springs. Same guy needs a complete interior resto on his '66 Malibu, and I now have a new customer.....

 

Ben, outstanding info for those who may have not done this type of repair. But there is one glaring tool missing, especially for first timers...............Alleve, Tylenol, Advil, whatever works for the fingers that cramp up, or quit working entirely. My brother, Pnugene and i redid 3 pair of buckets and 6 rear seat sections. At night, we lost lots of sleep from the pain. If you are use to this kind of work, maybe you get use to it. Personally, i never want to get use to it. Doesn't look hard, but is. Also, those right angled red handle pliers might just be the most useful of all the tools, at least in our opinion.
Not to hijack your thread, but others may have came across this problem.
Bought a set of what i thought was 1965 Chevelle buckets, had the horizontal lined upholstery still attached. Chrome spears down the sides. After rebuilding seats, destroyed upholstery trying to recover seats. Used heat just like on other seats, but PUI covers were short around shoulder area. Some have said these may have been Corvair or even Impala seats. Any thoughts. Thanks again for taking the time out to help others like us.

 

Great thread. Love to see your handy work! I too had a pair that was a mouse hotel. Luckily it was one side and they turned out great! Also, good to note that just bc they are cores and need recovered, does not mean that the guts are good to go.

Sent from my HTC6545LVW using Tapatalk

 

Anyone looking to buy a pair of unrestored bucket seats should ask to look at the bottom of the seat as well as the seat back frame with the Back cover removed, that will show if there was a Mouse hotel and at least most of the spring condition...

 

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This should be lesson number one that can be taken from this thread.
It doesn't matter what the seat looks like on the outside- could be trashed or new & beautiful.. Its whats inside that counts, and often you can have "restored" seats with nice new covers over old nasty springs and frames... or vise versa- thrashed covers with MINT shiny steel underneath.

ALWAYS request that the seat back cover be removed so you can inspect.

GM did not paint their springs or frames so SOME minor surface corrosion is to be expected even on the best of seat cores- but when its bad like these were, be aware you are in for spring repairs and extra expense.
It doesn't mean you should avoid them- they can be fixed like these... but pay appropriately.

Its a rare treat to see shiny metal inside GM seats, and if you do its usually a sign of a great set.

 

Could you tell us what kind of wire you used for the edge wire? Any special type of wire and where can it be purchased from? The S springs I've seen on upholstery websites, heck out in the desert I've seen a broken down sofa I may have to cut up and harvest the springs from. Jim

 

Its Called "Edge Wire", you can find it here..
Edge Wire (Border Wire), Chalk, Upholstery Accessories, B.W. Clip, Coil Springs from Rochford Supply - Your Online Textile and Upholstery Superstore!

 

Thanks for sharing this information and pictures.

 

Ok... I left off Both lowers cushions were complete, one upper cushion was about 80% complete, still needed to fab up the upper hoop... then both upper and lower hoops and spring repairs for the 2nd upper cushion.

Upper hoop fabbed:

New compared to old

And installed, a perfect fit!

Can't forget these little buggers... luckily i have a bunch of these made up as they are almost always broken, so just took it off the shelf to install..

And kabam.. Upper cushion done

I shot all 3 finished cushions with SEM Trim black this afternoon, and the 4th frame alone. Will hit the springs with paint when they are done.

I actually finished the last spring tonight as well... no pics, its the same as the other one!
I'll pick back up tomorrow night with padding install and buns.

 

Beautiful work. Hmmm....I wonder what my seats look like inside?

 

Ben....your "little bugger" picture. Most of the time the hole in the frame that those fit into is hogged out. So the wire slides in and out and makes funny clicking noises as it moves. I've had to either hammer the hole back to it's original shape, and in some cases, weld a small washer over the hole to prevent sliding.

You have any other suggestions for that problem?

 

For those who don't want to buy all of the tools and springs to build and fix a spring base, you can buy them completed here..
1968-72 Seat Bottom Springs (each)

 

Very true...available at the dial of a phone and a cc number.
But consider if you will, these two things...

#1 Most a-body seats have no where near the amount of damage that these do.
Most seats have one of a couple common breaks that could easily be repaired with a couple pieces if you are savy enough to make them up or know someone who can.

See my attachment below for the most common spots that are broken in GM strato bucket seats.

#2 The reproduction springs are too stiff.
In every case that i have worked with reproduction springs, they wind up sitting way too high, even when combined with the good foam.

on more than one occasion i have repaired someones broken original springs they have previously had removed- then torn down their seats to remove the repop ones and reinstall the originals.

So in my experience, yes the reproductions are out there... If you have seats as bad as these, they might be warranted- but otherwise i wouldn't be too quick to buy them.

I will readily admit that I have a LOT of labor into these repairs.
If i was charging someone for the repairs i'm doing- it would likely be close to the ~$350 it would cost for 4 of the reproduction springs- That said I'll take the pepsi challenge with my repaired seat springs next to seats with the repop ones every day of the week.
;-)

But for those who are handy...

CS Osborne Spring Bender ~$50
Bending Paddles - Use two pairs of square head linemans pliers instead of buying them.
Spring clips - $20 for 200 clips
9ga edgewire - ~$15 for several pieces
zig zag Sprigns - ~$60

about 6 hours and patience.

Thats a heck of a lot less than $350 when you are on a budget and you already blew $350 buying your crappy seat cores ;-)

Anyway... Back to the build!

 

Excellent work Ben :thumbsup:

 

I bought my first set of 70 only camaro seats that way.
The second set,I asked him to peel back the fabric and showed him what his seats really were,lol.That foam rots them over the years.
I had two sets,one rotted uptop,and one rotted on the bottoms.Wound up cutting both sets up,and rewelding them,lol to get one good set.