Thread: HOME MADE rod seats and panels

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Just did this my self,very close to complete now,only rugs and upper lip to do next.
I did it with my son, so his rod would have some nice insides,we were told by a few pro's it would cost about $ 2000+ to do it by them.
I never sewed anything before,just designed and built/drove race cars for the last 50 years.
It cost us $250 in vinyl and foam ect. He test drove around and likes it a lots.

Did you also do the rolled pleats inserts? If you did they look really good. The whole interior looks very professional................great job for little $$$$.........the way to go.

You really did a nice job on that interior, looks professional. What color are you going to do the carpets in? One suggestion is to go with black. I had tan carpeting in my 23 and it was a bear to keep clean. My 27 has black carpeting an I only have to vacuum it every once in a while and it shows no grease or dirt like the lighter color did.

Don

Looks really good. Nice job.

Damn that looks sweet!Very Nice.

BTW, still on the subject of keeping your interior clean, my Son Don has an all white interior in his T bucket and we have learned some things about keeping it nice. First of all, do not wear a leather belt as it will scratch and discolor the seat in that area. The marks will not come off, no matter what you do.

Secondly, we have found two interior products that do a great job. One is Lexol vinyl cleaner (blue bottle.....not the one for leather) The first time I wiped down Don's interior with it the rag turned black very quickly, and the interior had a nice shine to it when done, plus being white again. The second product is Mothers interior detailer. It does a similarly good job.

White interiors look great, just take a little care and work to keep them that way.

Don

Very nice, I like. What did you use for frame and padding on the seat?

Thanks much for the input and Ideas.
Cleaning tip will be super handy,thanks.
I did a design drawing to start with, and tryed to get idea of cost from a few pro upholstery places,2 of the 4 sent back that around $2000 will cover it,the others I got nothing back from. As I think that was very high for a rod this small,I desided to just do it my self,mod my drawing what I could do.
I had the wrong stuff to work with but it's all I did have, so just worked around not having a pro sewing machine.
Yes,the pleating is the type that came that way,called heatsealed pleating,I like how EZ it made it to do! I did it all with a housewife sewing machine I picked up at a yard sale $5,it's old 1972 Kenmore 158,there were some things it would not do,but i did a lot of playing around and found what it could do and used that in my design plan.
If I had to do a nother one,I'd most likely get one of those walking foot type sewing machines off Egay,some are only about $300,still more then my piggy bank had in it,yet we did OK with what we had.

There is a pro upholstery supply place not too far from me,were I tested out a few foams for how stiff they were to set on,picked a hard one [65] for bottom and softer [38] for the back,The numbers have to do with how many lb.s it takes to sink in like 1in. or something like that. I just sat on some sample and pick out the ones I liked.
The seats are 1/2in. extrer plywood,on 3/4in. x 4in. or what ever I needed to cut it to as bracing to body.
Rug going to be black

IMG_9574small.jpg
This hopefully shows how bottom of seat lifts up and is made with space for a radio You may note that there is two parts to bottom of seat in like layed out "V" ,the 1/2 forword goes up over radio,and the rear part lay flat on floor,this lowers driver down some .
The back of seat folds forword also to get to back storage,this bucket has no bed behind it,just a beer keg gastank.
Going to be time soon to take it apart for all the shiny paint.

Wow, Bat! Nice work! It looks like you've been doing upholstery for years. Amazing that it's your first job. Even more amazing when we consider you did it with a common household sewing machine. My wife did the upholstery in my old C-Cab years ago and it destroyed her old Singer machine. I had to buy her a new one, but it was still a lot cheaper than any of the estimates I had to get it professionally done.

Like you, I've always had to do everything myself because I can't afford to pay someone else to do it for me. Because of that, I've become a sort of "Jack of all trades", but I've never tried sewing anything. My wife is an accomplished seamstress/ tailor, however, and she has said if I buy a walking-foot machne she will teach me to use it. After seeing what you've done here I may take her up on the offer...

Don't forget to post more pics of the finished job when you're done. How about a pic of the whole car? Any decision on the colors yet?

This was just a lot of parts we got over the years and I made the rest,it was not a kit from anywere. The used glass body some one had used on something,just not well,it was full of holes I had to fix.
My son picked deep blue body and motor,black frame and running gear,except drop front axle is chrome,. At this point it's ready to take back apart and paint the shiny on soon,test driving was all very good ,IMG_9985.jpg
so no big things to rework or reweld or anything.

Lookin' good!! Nice proportions. I like the slanted windshield; that's the same as I'm using on my track-T (Another build thread? Yep, my track-style T) Dark blue, eh? With flames?

Tell Lance he'll be needin' some sunscreen on top if he's drivin' a roadster...

Jim,, Lance had hair on top last week,but he test drove the rod and look what happened! Lost hat too! He won't let me put flames,guess I'll have to do that again on my "A".

Wow! That thing must be fast; it blew Lance's hair to the back of his head.

Speaking of your "A", any progress?