Bucket Seat Springs. Re-use Original or Buy New???
 

Should I buy new bucket seat springs, the back and bottom which would cost me $368.00 for all four pieces, or is there a way to tighten up the original springs?

I have never reupholstered seats; so this will be quite a project. I don't know how stiff these 53-year-old springs should be. When I push down on the center part of the back springs and center part of the bottom springs, they feel way too spongy. But perhaps they stiffen up with the bucket seat burlap/cotton and the bucket seat padding (from Ames Performance); but I just don't know. If I could salvage my originals, I could save $389.00.

Unless a 450lbs person owned it, no need to. And if it was owned by a 450lbs.'er, only the driver's seat would need to be done.

Look over all the springs and replace only the broken ones. Look over the framework and repair as necessary. New foam will take care of the rest.

Check out this thread for some good info. Ben Rambow is a great resource for help and parts. He highly recommends not replacing the seat springs if at all salvageable.

http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...73#post5888873

Yours look pretty good.

Mine were not so good (rust) and did have some pretty fair deformity on the driver's side, so I opted for new ones. They are much stiffer, but thinking I might like that, as I'm 6'4" 230lbs.

Haven't recovered with the Legendary replacements, but hoping all goes well.

I second Ben Rambow. He has complete kits for spring repair, stuffing etc.
Buy new pads from ACI which are sold by our sponsor and other vendors.

Yes, the burlap and all will tighten things up and give it the support you expect.

Chief of the 60's: Thanks, great info on this link
Vertigo: Please keep us updated when you recover your springs with Legendary so we can swap knowledge.
kk68: Great educational link and Ben Rambow has great info too.

I still would like to stiffen up the two center springs on the bottom and back. I'll search and look over DIY video's.

Be careful trying to stiffen up the center springs. You want to sit "In" the seat and not "ON" the seat.

Once you get the burlap and jute, bun and cover all installed you will be amazed at how much stiffer everything becomes... kind of like a balsa wood model airpane wing suddenly gets pretty strong once you wrap it...

The upper cushion is supposed to be soft- so again be weary of making it too stiff or your gut will be in the steering wheel.

When i restore GM buckets, i will fix any broken springs of course, then i use HD 9ga springs for new side support springs weather they are broken or not (since they are the most often broken, if they aren't yet, they will soon) and i make a short "doubling" peice and clamp it onto the front outer corner compression springs.

Those two improvements really make a massive difference in the way the seats feel. Puts the support right under your thighs where you need it.

Its about as good as it can get with compression spring seats.

ping me if you have any questions, I'm happy to help. (...and thanks for all the kind words from everyone else!)

Following this thread ... I'm about to do the same job. I've got Legendary covers coming, the good seat foam and ordered my Osborne pliers etc.

Also Rambow ... do you have a website I could peruse for products?

Ben is a great resource and generous person. He did my seats when I was in WA and they are the nicest parts in my car.

He could definitely guide you on the best way to stiffen your springs.

He used to have a web site but it may be gone as my link doesn't work.

He does have a facebook page. He is a member on PY (Rambo) but not sure how often he checks in. You could try PM'ing him.

Link to Facebook Page

Mike R? Is that you? How's Colorado treating you? got your car on the road yet?
You should Hear Mike T's firebird now that the 400 has been rebuilt! it like a whole different car! (his interior is pretty nice too ;-) )

Anyway, Thanks for the kind words... I'm really not here to sell stuff but to offer help.

I do have some ad's in the classifieds section that i bring to the top now and then with some of what I offer, but basically if anyone has a need for raw seat spring by the foot, custom fabbed spring repair parts or seat install kits or just want to ask me seat questions, just PM me. I'm happy to help.


-Ben

Hey Ben!

Thanks for sharing more of your wisdom here.

Moved the car 1-1/2 yrs ago, parked it with some big issues (and a similar amount of frustration), haven't touched it since. Yes, I'm less than awesome in car-ness. I do want to get it running this next year. It developed a "little" rust issue in the fuel system during its vacation in the wet zone and I suspect I'll be buying a new gas tank before I can start down the list of known problems (followed by those yet to be discovered). But it has really nice seats!!!

Good to hear Mike T has his gem running strong. It was already beautiful!

Slightly off topic but .... how many people have rebuilt their rear seats using the factory seat cover? Like many rear seats the factory cover on mine is in decent shape, but the stuff underneath did not fare well stored in a shed for years.

Would like to remove the factory cover, replace the padding, burlap etc and reinstall the factory cover.

The vinyl cover for the front bench in my El Camino was reused with new padding by the PO.and looked pretty good but still had some signs of wear. IMHO I think you're going to find that if you do use it, there may be a distinct difference in appearance between the front Legendary covers and the rear factory cover. Not so much in design but in general appearance. The rear may look 'tired' or 'used' as compared to the front.

X2 what OG68 said. Even if the vinyl looks pretty good, I think there is a cloth apron that stretches underneath that may be a little weak for restretching.

My back seat was in good shape and I chose to keep it but I did not try to pull it off and put it back on.

In my case, I chose to keep the rear because 70 LeMans covers are not reproduced and both the patterns and colors are different than GTO/LeMans Sport in 1970. I went from a bench to buckets in the front. Because buckets weren't an option for Tempest nor LeMans in 70, there was no such thing as a "correct" bucket seat cover. I used a 68 Chevelle pattern (thanks to Ben Rambow) and a 69 color to get the best possible match to the rears.

To OG68's point, when I tried matching the rear vinyl I ordered samples from every manufacturer and could never match the rear perfectly. I think this was more about the age of the rear than anything.

Net: If you want to keep the original rear cover you are likely to accept a mismatch with the available repro front materials. Good news is you get to decide if it's important to you!

I guess if it's too bad I can just get the new Legendary cover at some point in the future. At least if I get the "under work" done it will just be a matter of replacing the cover. It's looking like the only original pieces left will be the back seat and the dash.

OK, so when I disassembled the front driver and passenger seats (years ago), I labeled the parts, but not as well as I should have. Parts such as springs, nuts, bolts, and odd-shaped pieces of metal that may hold the seat back and seat bottom together. In this posting, I have 2 pictures but are not that good.

The pictures show 8, S-shape springs. I don't know where they get attached.

Hard to say from the photos... Maybe it would be easier to show your bare seat spring assemblies to see what is missing from them?

Rambow;
I had time to take better photo's today of broken springs on my seats. Maybe you can advise me on how to repair them. Also maybe you have the repair parts?

In this post, I am including pic's of the driver seat bottom, left side. I'm using a red pen to point at the breaks and some pic's have a white background.