Driver's Seat

My first project was to figure out why the driver's seat was so hard to adjust for different size drivers. I found this helpful link about restoring seat tracks and thought this will be easy.

There are supposed to be four 1/2 nuts that hold on the driver's seat that you need to get under the car to loosen. Mine only had three.

With the seat out of the car I see that the parts of the left rail does not always unlock when the lever is pressed and the right rail gets caught on the wire that attaches to the left rail. This is because the left rail is loose even with the bolts still on it.
After removing the seat tracks I noticed one of the welds on the bottom seat frame broke. This is most likely the cause of the hard to move seat. I either need to learn to weld and buy a welder or have somebody fix this.

While bending the tabs on the seat tracks to release them I broke the tab off. I do not think this will matter because the screw that attaches the track to the base will keep the bearing from falling out.

One of the nylon tabs on the rail was missing and I could not find any for sale on line so I made my own by carving up a plastic hanger.

Here are the frame rails parts before cleaning and painting.


The seat cover, pad and felt and burlap are attached to the frame with hog rings.


I removed all of the flammable stuff from the seat bottom so I can take the frame to a welder to fix the weld that failed.


The owner of a local auto repair shop welded the seat base back together. I cleaned up and repainted the base and tracks. I bought hog rings and pliers from CJ Pony Parts and put the original burlap, felt, cushion and cover back over the base. The cover has some small tears on the side and back but not very noticeable.

I put the tracks and springs back on and now they move freely.

Expenses for seat

• Welding $20 (Bill said he would do it for free but I felt I had to give him something)
• Hog rings and pliers $20.95 (this will also be used when replacing the rear seat cover)
  
• Front Seat Mounting Nuts (4) $7.00