Wagon Progress

[MP&C]

Getting some seat brackets welded in...

Plug welding...

But before we get all the front seats in and make it harder to access the back, lets get the seat riser plug welded in for the back seat...

Next, our rear seat that came with the buckets was slightly oversize for our widened wheel wells. Some quick measurements showed we need to lose about 2" in width..

Then the rear corners needed relieving for the wheel tubs.....

Some 3/16 diameter stainless rod was used to reconnect the pieces in the new rear corners

Some fire prevention for the foam..

With both sides fitting individually, time to join our sides back together...

Video of the surgery results....

With the overlap of material trimmed, this part is looking pretty good!

 

['68 Coronet R/T]

How will you seam the split in the seat cover?

 

[MP&C]

All of the seats are getting reupholstered when I get done welding on them..

 

[MP&C]

With the 55's rear seat bottom narrowed to fit the wheel tubs.....

....time to do the same for the seat back. First to blow it apart....

This had a multiple fold down, arm rest in the middle, non 55 looking arrangement. The arm rest will be first to go, and we'll attach the fold down sections together..


The frame is sectioned in the middle, a tube driven inside, and TIG welded around the perimeter..

Then the seat innards are trimmed accordingly to make a one piece back..

Then some 14 gauge strips are cut out to join the two sections together..

That should work, tomorrow we'll work on the new pivot brackets..

 

[MP&C]

In removing the section of foam on the seat back we find the cushion has a wire around the arm rest void. As we are removing the arm rest altogether (when it gets reupholstered) we removed the wire..

The previous pivot for the seats had a tapered pin hex bolt that secured into a hex nut that was welded onto the pivot bracket, which can be seen here:

Due to our width constraints, we need to remove all that excess hardware.. So we chose to put the "securing nut" inside the seat, and use a simple pan head allen screw through the 12 gauge bracket.. Here's our Pivot "axle" inside the seat back..

Here's the test fit of our 12 gauge steel pivot bracket. Radius was used on the bends to match the tube. The tube was originally round, and the side uprights were flattened out using the MH19 hammer to buy us some more clearance between wheel tubs..

The bead shown on the bracket was done on the Lennox Nibbler.
This should give us a bit of clearance on the edges to help prevent binding of the upholstery.

Bead turned out pretty well for 12 gauge steel! Some TIG welding to put the parts together:

Video of it in operation:

One part down, next we'll tackle the brackets to the floor.

 

[MP&C]

Back in the shop this evening, time to make some bolting brackets to hold the seat back frame to the floor..

Locating...

Brackets TIG welded on....

This shows it in place, we have about 1/4" clearance at the tight spots....

The cleco's were removed and 1/4-20 AVK rivet nuts installed in the floor... Missed that picture...

Next will be the top support....

 

[MP&C]

Now for the top of the seat frame... We started with some 3/8-16 standoffs that are 5/8 diameter, and turn them to 1/2 diameter to fit inside the seat frame tube...

Then holes are drilled in some 1.25 square tubing...

Tacked in place and a nut used for added insurance...

Seat latches plug welded in place...

Side pieces formed....

The side pieces will be trimmed, fitted, and welded to the wheel well...

 

[DATEC]

Interior work like that is dam impressive. That's one part I haven't gotten into but would like to do especally making a custom dash.

Nice work and thanks for taking the time to post the progress.

 

[MP&C]

Thanks!


More work on the seat back bracket... Trimming the side pieces to match the wheel well...

Adding welding flange, hammered out of 16 gauge steel..

Test drive....





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpFl01yHvKw





Used the Roper Whitney hand punch to make our plug weld holes..

Next we'll close off the back area to contain the amp and bass speaker.

 

[MP&C]

Here are the factory seat retainers to hold the seat bottom in place.

Time for some brackets to hold the retainers. Cut out some 19 gauge...

Drilled some holes for an inside radius, and trimmed the corners for the floor pan flange..

Now to fold some flanges on the sides for strength, using the Diacro press brake and a 1/2" thick lower die. By adding some rare earth magnets to the back side to serve as a back stop, we get a perfect 1/4" flange...

Then some back and forth between the Erco kick shrinker and the press brake with a narrow die inside the folds.... and we have 45* bends on either end of our brackets...

Test fit.... and trimming the retainer hole...

 

[Bartman]

Very nice work.

 

[elwood]

Always enjoy your posts.

 

[MP&C]

Thanks for the comments guys!


Had our new apprentice started today, while I cut out the hole in the second seat bracket, Mike got started on punching and drilling holes for plug welding the passenger bucket seat bracket...

After I got the bracket hole cut out, E media blasted the brackets and added some SPI epoxy using a brush. We mainly wanted to get the bottom side well covered as it will be inaccessible once welded in place..

First coat...

Two coats, that should hold us for under a seat...

Meanwhile I got out the John Deere rod bender to see if we could make up some anchors for the shoulder belt..

Bent with relief for a 1/2-13 lock nut..

Welded with short bursts and plenty of cooling between to keep the nylon lock intact..

test fit...

plug weld holes drilled and welded in place....

Mike finished up plug welding the seat bracket in place...

 

[MP&C]

Had a late start in the shop tonight as I had to go look at a school bus. Yeah, week and a half to go until the end of school.

Looks like something gave the spot mirror a nice push..

The mirror mount looks like it's no longer straight....

OK, so we found it hard to fathom something hitting the mirror that high in the air as the bus was driving into it, so the other possibility was something backed into this one.. A quick search of the buses parked close by revealed this one with some nice shiny metal showing...

A quick test drive showed that the mirror didn't vibrate/move around that much so we're going to address this after school is out so this one can still be used for the next couple weeks..


Back at the shop, time to weld in the seat retainer brackets...

....and then started the next shoulder harness anchor bracket....

 

[MP&C]

Pilot hole drilled for the passenger B-Pillar.....

The center point is spring loaded, but they seem to locate better using a pilot hole vs. just a punch...

The plug weld holes drilled for the anchor and paint cleaned off in prep for welding..

Apprentice E worked on smoothing off the plug welds from last week..

Welding in the anchor .....

For the lower anchor point, which will hold both the retractor and the lap belt, we used some 14 ga that will be plug welded to the back side of the inner quarter panel just behind the B Pillar.. A 1/2" lock nut is welded to the back side, and a spacer added to the front side to keep the lap belt off the side wall.

Or the motion picture version....

 

[MP&C]

Tonight we have both seat belt retractor anchor plates welded and waiting for apprentice E to media blast and epoxy prime..

Next, we have the side filler panels to either side of the fold down rear seat that don't fit with those pesky wheel tubs in the way...

So we plan to make new ones, with a relief to fit snugly to the wheel tubs at the bottom end.. We used the Baileigh MH19 hammer and the shrinking dies to shape a piece of 14 gauge cold rolled to fit the wheel tub. Glad I didn't have to do all that shrinking by hand.

A flat piece from the top section will be welded to this piece, and then foam will be glued to the assembly and upholstered to match the seat..

 

[MP&C]

To catch up on the wagon, the seat belt retractor anchor bracket will be located inside the quarter panel, here we are laying out for the plug weld holes that hold it in place...


Holes piloted, then use the burnishing brush to remove the paint from the weld area...

Then the holes are enlarged for plug weld size, I use a letter A and plenty of heat.

Back to our rear seat back modification, some 14 gauge steel is shrunk in the Baileigh MH19 to fit the driver's wheel well..

After some cleanup on the Tommasini cast wheeling machine...

Meanwhile, Mike has media blasted the anchor brackets and is here spraying them with SPI epoxy primer...

The 14 gauge is then held to the wheel wells and marked a line parallel to the seat frame. We'll use this line to start the transition to flat, using a linear stretch die in the MH19.

Linear stretch die also used to add this detail to blend into the bottom part...

Tacked together and fitted....

Tig welded....

This should JUST hide the wheel well, but doesn't look like the foam will be all that thick at the bottom...

Weld dressed and another fit, I was going to trim the sides but we'll be adding some stiffener beads to the flat area, so we'll wait until after that process to trim the sides.

 

[MP&C]

Saturday Mike worked on the 55, with the seat belt retractor anchor plates now epoxied and cured for a week, they're ready to weld inside the quarters. He clamped them in place, scribed all the holes, removed them and cleaned paint off the hole locations....

clamped in, ready to plug weld.....

then he dressed the plug welds on the anchor plates as well as a few remaining ones on the drivers bucket seat pan. next on the list is to fabricate some arm rests for the rear seat area that will also serve to enclose the seat belt retractors.

 

[MP&C]

With the Biederman fenders out of the building, its time to work on the 55's rear seat bolsters. Time to assemble the parts for the passenger side..

TIG welded together...

....and cleaned up....

Back to the drivers side, all the edges will be tipped forward to eliminate the possibility of sharp edges cutting through the upholstery..

This is the edge adjacent to the center fold down seat, so we wanted it nice and straight..

To better check that we were straight across the uneven surfaces, we used the laser again...

Seats mocked up again.....

.....and laser used to get a straight edge on the outside..

for more edge tipping....

Hopefully we can finish this up in the morning and start cutting out the foam pad..

 

[MP&C]

Here's the panel with all the edges tipped forward, clamped in place..

Some poster board templates were traced from the steel part, then trimmed out and transferred to the foam.

Used the electric bread knife from the kitchen (if anyone asks you haven't seen it...) to trim out the foam, makes short work of it...

roughed out...

Test fit for marking the profile...

trimmed /sculpted to size with the bread knife and 3" roloc. Use a worn disc on the sander, the fresh ones tend to grab..

This fills out the seat pretty nicely and hides that wheel tub that protrudes into the back side of the seat.