Building My Future Daily Driver

Nice job on the seats. Did you use the old upholstery as a pattern? What material did you use?

 

Thank you,
I still have to finish the driver seat but, I am happy with them so far.

I found the fabric online @ http://www.midwestfabrics.com/
Black: Original Harley Davidson vinyl seat material, This was an obvious choice for me since I ride.
Orange: Microfiber Ferragamo Pumpkin
Very easy to work with but I can't say anything about their durability since I have no idea, and I have little idea what I should have used.
These seemed reasonably priced and I didn't want to use something like canvas or the like because I am not just building for functionality,
it's a training build for my wagon and panel.
These are both going to be street rods so I want to learn how to do stuff that I actually
care about the looks instead of only how they perform.

Yes I did use the old material for the pattern, I carefully cut them apart with a seam splitter and marked each piece for location and orientation as I dis-assembled
them. When you try to sew them back together it can get kind of confusing with all the pieces laying around. They really don't resemble a seat and it can be difficult to
tell which pieces go where, and where to start and finish sewing seams so they fit correctly.

 

Thanks for the info. I've been thinking I may try my hand at that for my '33 pickup project, whenever I get that far.

 

Bruce I say go for it,
I'm teaching myself and it really is a matter of taking your time,

Dis-assembly: Making sure you cut the seams and paying attention to the pattern your making.

Cutting out the new material: Carefully cutting as close to the exact size and shape as you can to make assembly easier.

Re-assembly: Sewing the seams as straight as possible, with the same overlap as the original pieces had and going in the correct order so you don't sew yourself into a corner so to speak.

The worst part for me is I'm not very patient even when I'm learning something new.

But I have finally realized that my happiness with the final result is directly proportional to knowing and excepting my skill and ability when I start.

I know it's not gonna be as good as Gabe and his boys do on "American Hot Rod" but I really enjoyed doing them and the next time I'm going to improve.

Another problem with these seats for patterns was they had already been re-covered at least once, all 1 color and cloth except the welt chord was vinyl.
they were covered in grease and worn, so they weren't the easiest pieces to work with, but a lot of work with an iron plus slow lay out and cutting and it all came together.

Fortunately I have a seemingly endless string of projects that all need interior work.

Anyway still brutally cold here so I re-did the head rest on the passenger seat and finished the driver side, here's a few shots.



Driver side,



Here's how they'll look installed sort of





I still have to pull everything tight and finish straightening the seams but that's them.
Not the best pictures but I'll get some when they're installed.

 

I forgot a shot of how I extended the driver side mount.
I cut the original 1" in front of the forward bolt in the mount, then cut 4 pieces of 1"x 1/4 strap 8" long and welded them on each
side, sandwiching and over lapping the original seat pieces 1" on each end.




On the pass. side I used 8" lengths of 1" tube that the original fit inside and extended them a total of 6" also.

No reason to show this now since I can't use them anyway, ( no floor In the center, no bolt holes in the door way)
but It does prove that even with the simplest thing I have to be prepared to go a step backwards for every 2 steps forward.


AND IT SUCKS !!

 

The cold snap just won't end. 35 below here Monday night/Tuesday morning!
Thought I would update thread and help answer an age old question.

Went out to the garage to thaw a frozen water line and noticed a set of fresh tracks coming out of the shed where I parked my Harley for the winter. The tracks were heading north away from my house in a foot of powder that was undisturbed the day before.
A doe mule deer had looked for shelter from the cold and while she stood there she dusted the seat with her tail.



Wasn't that nice?







Now the help with the age old question,
I don't know if a bear does his business in the woods, but I do know that when it's 35 below even a deer wants to be inside on a dry dirt floor while she does hers.








Thank goodness its still frozen.

 

Looks like that deer is running a little rich. We just got over our cold spell here. We went about 10 days where the high never got out of the 20's. Never went below zero at night though.

 

I do have an actual Jeep build related up-date.
This is work I did this summer as a time killer, I wasn't going to post them so they're not the best but I'm bored out of my skull and don't want anyone to lose interest in the build.
It's gonna be a week or so before it warms up even to the low 30's so here we go.

This is the windshield frame/defrost duct as it looked when i brought it home.
The access hole in front of the driver seat. The sheet metal is pulled up from the bottom along with the split from the hole running downward, and twisted edge on the top.





This is the center access hole and the split in the steel is running in both directions along with separating along the bottom.





This gash is between the two holes already shown.





I cannot figure out what caused the damage pictured it looked like the wiper linkage was trying to escape by tearing its way out.

 

So I welded all the holes that were drilled along the top (15) and repaired the louvers for the defroster's. Then I tacked the bottom back in place and welded the splits in the sheet metal.
Once I ground it all down I cut a strip of the sheet steel I've used for everything else, leaving room around the nut serts for the windshield hold down brackets.
Then I welded it in place along the entire panel top and bottom.
Here's a couple after welding, before grinding and the access holes drilled with a 1 1/2" hole saw.





After it was all ground down and done I decided to swap it for the windshield off of my 57' cj5 that I was building as a diversion
from this project.

Here are the test fit shots.



And here you can see how the 71' brackets now sit flush with the repaired duct, and I didn't have to adapt the 57' windshield
latches to the frame.

Before anyone might ask I DID NOT put all those holes in the dash (the extra gauges, hole for the
shaft type am radio and all the switches) I did put the turn signal indicators in when I re-wired it and I did put the hideous
diamond plate trim panel around the slide in cassette player. That's how big the hole in the dash was when I got it, and this was the easiest way to cover it.




One with a coat of cheapo shake and shoot to show what still needed grinding/sanding.



I only had 1 factory plug and a hard plastic cap I found to plug the access holes, so that's all I ever put in. Also it's got a hardtop so I didn't
use any windshield hold down latches. Sadly this little beauty belongs to a couple in eastern Iowa now so I can't get a shot of the finished product
Considering how badly damaged this thing was I am really happy with how the repair turned out.


And I miss that little 57'.

 

Very nice repair man! Dont lose momentum on your build! I love reading up on it!

 

Hey thanks for the encouragement I'm really trying to maintain some kind of momentum on this thing. When it's this cold I can only sit and think
about what I can do to make some kind of progress, and then I look at internet sites like this and wonder why nobody is making enough progress on
their builds to keep me entertained, it has to be warmer somewhere.

 

30 degree swing in temp. today -5 all the way up to 28 ABOVE zero, but it still isn't above 15 in my garage. There isn't enough time to light the fire and warm it enough to
even make it worthwhile, I would never be able to get away from the stove, just stand there and feed the fire, and my shop is so full I can't store a big pile of wood, that
means multiple trips outside for wood.

I did actually work on the Jeep today though so I'm gonna share what little progress I made.

Marked the floor and prepped to cut it. Prep means hanging a space heater in front of the air compressor so it will turn on and build air
then drag out the plasma cutter.



Cut it just behind the pass. seat between two floor ribs.





This is the last of the 82' chevy roof panel cut out of the center of the fan shroud.
Pay no attention to the crossed out lines they were going to be tabs for the construction but it was taking to long
to lay out and even think about the actual bending and assembly.




All cut out.



Then blew an 1 1/2" hole and drilled (2) 5/16" hole's thru the bottom (the center of the cross)
Folded the sides up and butt welded them. Here's a test fit.



This is a couple views of the box with the fuel tank valve installed.







Then it was off to the house to finish and warm up.

 

Too cold in the garage so I had to paint it in the house, being single has some benefits, but my cats aren't too happy with the smell though!



A little silicon around the valve, and drying on the furnace.

 

I was going to quit for the day, hard to drag myself away from the furnace back to the icebox!
But my neighbor needed me to fix the hitch on his suburban so I decided to get a little more done.

Here's the test fit, the box is 4"x6"x5" deep. The two inlets face perpendicular to the frame rails, the 1 for the rear tank extends to the center of the
frame rail and is about an 1 1/2" above it. The rear fuel line will run on top of the frame and 90 into the valve. The under seat tank with bottom outlet
will run straight to the valve just under the output yolk on the transfer case. Then a 180 from the outlet and right down the frame rail to the pump.
This is the valve installed but not painted yet.





This is after most of the welding and some grinding, after it's all done I'll blow the slag and dust out.





Welding all done view from above.



and a view from the drivers seat, well from the drivers area anyway.



To finish it up I will either make the scrap of removed floor into a panel to close the opening or weld a little piece of piano hinge
on it to make a door. It's within easy reach of the driver and will be hidden from view.