Bugeye seat back upholstery install

[jgrewe]

Hello all, been a while since I've touched the never ending BE project. Too many race cars in my life, and a new house, and work, and everything... I've had an upholstery kit in a box for a couple years just waiting for that point of the project. I've never seen the stock seats in finished form, just a pile of metal frames, rusted seat backs, and new pans.

I've searched the web and ten pages of search results here for a picture of how to finish the bottom edge of the seat backs? A couple pictures will answer a bunch of questions and I can drive this car with new interior in a week or so! Wrapping the front and back around the bottom edge, what hooks to what with the clips? Does the reinforcement brace around the lower few inches inside come into play? Is everything gathered on the very bottom lip or does the back wrap all the way around and attach to that brace?

 

[jjscott]

I'm at exactly the same point with my bugeye upholstery. While I believe I have the right idea, I'm still a bit wary of actually installing the covers. Here's what I have:

The black seats are what remains after my wife and I recovered them in 1973. She sewed up the covers and I put them on, so the install is not original, but probably followed the original. The horsehair underpadding was salvageable after a lot of disinfecting. New felt was used and new covers came from AH Spares. (I bought the car back after 38 years.)

Looking at the pictures will disclose there are two sizes of metal clips. The narrow ones, for a single layer, are for the front of the cover, which is pulled tight and clipped on first. The large clips are installed second when stretching on the backs. They go over the back fabric as well as the front which is already clipped on. Moss' catalog shows the two clip sizes.

The one picture with the pick in it shows the small clips over the front after removal of the large clips and the back fabric. The back side photos clearly show the wider clips.

The red seat pictures were found somewhere; that install looks original. The diagram came from someone here, I think.

There is also a very good pdf, which is the best explanation I found. It apparently is too large to load but I can send. I also can't seem to fix the order of the pictures.

Jim

 

[tomshobby]

Try this https://www.victoriabritish.com/interiors/

 

[David_Doan]

Here's pics of what I did - https://doanfamily.net/blog/2012/03/19/the-great-seat-project/

 

[Jim_Gruber]

David,
hey been a while. Hope all is well

 

[David_Doan]

David,
hey been a while. Hope all is well

Thanks Jim... Put the car on stand-by and started a big list of Honey-do's late last summer. We repainted the entire house (inside). Then the holidays, etc. I did squeeze in some garage time to restore this old Craftsman Drill Press

and I made some bar-stools for our Kitchen:

 

[Jim_Gruber]

But where are you with your BE Project?

 

[David_Doan]

But where are you with your BE Project?

bodywork about 90% done....almost ready for paint

 

[jgrewe]

All of this helps guys, thanks.

David, pictures 55,56,and 57 are exactly how I had pictured it being done. The trick will be making sure the seams line up from the back to the bottom. I also had to rebuild the lower edges of my backs, I have a shrinker/stretcher combo though and did each one with two pieces of metal. I'll post pics for the next guy who comes along searching for ideas.

I also dig the old Craftsman drill press and bar stools!

 

[David_Doan]

If you do the seat backs 1st, you can do the bottoms to match the lines. The bottoms have an inch or so of extra material on each side.