Rear Seats (1960) Refurbishment

[whyperion]

Having bought a kit of seat covers, had the springs overhauled and tacked back onto the squab backboard, it starts to get tricky.

The kit does not include the horsehair/felt/foam and I am not certain what thickness to actually put where.

I assume a 5mm thickness of felt across base and squab sections, then 10mm of the 'Dacron?) type foam to replace the crushed and disintegrated whatever foam was there first. With horsehair or foam sections across the front of the base unit around the side corners and along the top of the squab. I was thinking of fixing the sections in place with some thin copper wire ( stripped household wiring ) , that would just rest into the foam and felt and tie around the springs.

Any other / better ideas and is their already a thread on this, there was some other info on the net, as I cannot find it at present.

Thanks.

[LouiseM]

You can download fitting instructions from Newton Commercial which might help with what goes where:

http://www.newtoncomm.co.uk/cars/morris ... e-leather/

[whyperion]

" Instructions

We do not normally supply rear seat paddings as we have found that the originals can be used again, with perhaps with a little rearrangement and the addition of an extra piece of padding. If the base springs have collapsed, all you need to do is stretch them back to shape "

As I said the kit comes without padding , and when the mice re-arranged the rest of the padding and wadding and the foam crumbled to nothing I am still uncertain what to replace with, my local domestic ones both say their stuff is too thin ( apparently car seats get used more than domestic sofas (really??). I could wander over to a place near Heathrow and pick their retail brains.

I can get felt from one of the trim suppliers (not Newton) mentioned elsewhere on the forum, it looks like horsehair is no longer availble in sections, I could try spliting out one of my other seats and using what is in that I suppose.

I think I am going to use tacks hammered in rather than staples when fitting to backboard - I'll let you know how many fingers I have left ( actually as a tip I hold in place tacks with circlip pliers as the spring just helps to keep them straight.

[ASL642]

You can get upholstery horsehair on the internet together with the cloth they used to cover it with if you wish to recover them as they were originally done.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/horse-80-20-Uph ... B008RB0RNY

When I re did some seats a few years ago I used sheet polyester wadding for the wraps around the front seat holding them in place with spray adhesive. I bought upholstery foam from Dunelm Mill (they sell the right depth for MM seats and new straps for the back supports. The diaphragm from ESM for the seat base works well and seems to last longer than the webbing. hope this helps.

[Theo_NL]

This is how I did it:
(text in Dutch, but pictures international)

http://morrisminortourer.blogspot.nl/20 ... eding.html