I want up having a bit more time this weekend than I originally planned to work on the seats in the truck. The first thing to do was to finish up the base of the front seat and get that ready to install. Then I cut material down and fitted it to the seat back from the ’63 frame. Looking it over in detail, I remembered that two of the coils directly behind the driver were missing, probably rusted out. Instead of trying to figure out how to fix that, I decided to tear down the ’67 seat and rebuild that one—a decision made easier knowing that I needed the chipboard IH installed to make sure passengers don’t put their knees through the vinyl.
So, I pulled it out of the truck and tore it down in the driveway. After wire-wheeling the rust on the bottom from a pretty sizable mouse nest, I sprayed it liberally with rust converter and let it dry. Later, in the basement, I used the material I’d pre-cut and started stretching the fabric over the frame. This seat probably took the most effort to actually put together, but after I started in the middle and worked my way out to the edges it came together really well. Then, I carried it back out to the truck and put it in place temporarily to see how things look. I’m really happy with the way the whole thing has turned out.
Suddenly, the interior of the truck looks legit: The color of the piping matches the gray of the door cards perfectly. The seats are comfortable, and feel strong when I’m sitting in them.
So now I’ve got to do some finish painting and clean up on the seat back, run more hog rings along the bottom of the front seat, base, and paint the frame from the green truck red to match the rest of the truck and I should be able to seal that stuff up.