Thread: 55 Wagon Progress

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OK, so sometimes you take another look and think yeah, we can do better than that (more scraps). Today the passenger bucket seat was test fit onto our riser. It could be brought a bit tighter to the floor.





Next, looking at the cross member, the rear flange (red arrows) didn't match up to the rear flange of our riser.





The blue tape shows the rear flange of the cross member below...





Here's our updated riser, half as tall, and once trimmed the flange will match to above the cross member..

Good catch Robert.
When you're looking at a picture on a flat screen, you're not always thinking about the structural loading.
The new mount looks so much "sleeker" too. You guys do such nice work.

It's always the littlest things that take the most time, but in the end it really pays off. Those small detailed modifications that are made to any car whether inside or out are never really seen by most, but they still are cool and the builder knows and that makes him smile.

Nice work, I wish I could do metal work like that. My seat risers are flat steel bent at a 90.

More details on the seat risers, here the 5/8-11 hex nut is welded inside. The tacks at the top are merely to hold it centered within the hole to maintain our correct C-C hole spacing. It gets welded inside as well to keep things anchored in place.











The 5/8 hardware was chosen as the factory seat bracket on these 2002 Monte Carlo seats had a hole that large existing already. The front of the seat bracket actually had another bracket underneath that was held in place with a solid rivet. We drilled out the rivet to remove the obstacle (so the rail was flat across the bottom), and opened the hole up for 3/8 hardware.


Test fit....














Still need to fill in the flange corners on the front and this one will be ready for SPI epoxy primer to coat all the surfaces before it gets welded in place..

Your attention to detail and perfection continue to astound me!!!

Very nice! Were the seat belts anchored to the rear seat track bolt and that's why they were so large? It seems that's how the newer cars are built but i'm not certain.

The inside seat belt is attached to the seat frame/track, the outer ones at floor/b-pillar are not. We still need to make some plates to weld into the B-pillar for bolting the shoulder/lap belt. That's a big reason the new version was extended in the back, the riser's rear flange will be plug welded through the floor and directly into the cross member, and the forward flange of the same cross member will be plug welded into where it also intersects the seat riser's side flanges.

I'm not going to show pictures of my seat brackets anymore Seriously, very nice work !

Haha! you should see the PRACTICE pile!


Moving on to the outer risers, these ones will be a bit taller due to the recess where the original seat frames bolted. We started out with using the tipping die in the Lennox to thin the 14 gauge cold rolled steel at the bend line for a more crisp bend.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKFZqnHb9eY


Next, after making the inside bends, the Fasti-werks bead roller is used with a skate board wheel to add a radius to the outer "leg" of the riser.

















Next time in the shop we'll get the ends closed up.....

Moving on to closing up the ends of the outer seat riser... Quite a bit of stretch to get this corner to match up to the seat riser...




















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


Then the corner was Tig welded in place and another test fit with the bucket seat..


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf-X5eHc5bE




.

Man, you do great work. I think I'd have to section a part of round tube and weld a flange on the bottom since I don't have a roller like that. (That would take a long time compared to what you have done)

Cody Walls took the Dave Thomas 35 Chevy to Pomona this weekend for the GNRS, the car took 2nd place in it's class and also received a paint award for the 57 Cadillac Biarritz colored finish. Well done Cody!

Cody learned his craft very well. Congrats Cody!

Proud for you guys!