Upholstery

I have the original 2/3 - 1/3 seat arrangement, minus the upholstery, which the dog ate. Most of the springs and so on are in pretty good shape, other than being a bit rusty. A little sag, but mostly intact. I'm guessing that most shops will insist they can only do a foam replacement. That's what they told me when I was having a lot of old sturdy office furniture redone, as opposed to buying the new plastic crap. I wonder how well foam will take the beating my lard butt will give it. Do you fellas have any problems with foam built seat suspensions?

 

I found an old timer in Missouri that reupholstered my 1/3 2/3 seats for 90 bucks and it looks awesome. You may want to shop around. Upholstery is one of those things that it pays to seek out the expert, but not necessarily the guy in town with the big fancy store. My guy worked out of his garage and had just finished doing a bunch of church pews......somewhere to look for a lead maybe?
I had a couple of broken coil springs, he told me to go to the junkyard and cut open an old pickup bench seat, sure enough 30 minutes later I found some in an old Chevy pickup. I later had him do a -7 rear seat and the headliner in my XJ, flawless work both times.

 

I just sent my 2 seats to the 5 out and he's a pro $150.00 each I will post pic's when there done maybe 2 weeks This guy dose a lot of show and org work (will see)

 

Just what type of material was used back in the '50's anyhow? I have newer vinyl seats in mine but am thinking of having them re-covered in a more period correct fabric.

 

When I got my Jeep the seats had been reupholstered at some point an intensely ugly light blue with a big dark blue capital "T" on each seatback (Doesn't it make ya wonder???)
I pulled that crap off and found what I think was the original on the pass seat, it was a dark blue vinyl. Of course being a new owner and not knowing better, I did not save it. The color makes sense as a NOS brochure I have lists 3 vinyl colors, Marlin blue, Charcoal, and Rawhide for the universals (1967). The marlin blue was only used with body colors Glacier White, Empire blue metallic, and marlin blue metallic. I think my original body color was white.

 

I'd think that vinyl was available by the '50s. Typical padding was felt or horsehair.

WWII Jeeps had green canvas seat covers. Probably that was carried forward (in civilian colors) until vinyl was available.

 

Not sure about the 50's, but our 61 had vinyl in gold, more or less, and it was textured sorta like diamond plate. The driver's side bottom was redone in the late sixties, and I still have bits and pieces of the original stuff that the dog missed somehow....