need picture of S2 front seat wood frame.

**leafsprung** · 03-11-2013, 11:49 AM

Seats

Series one and early series two seats are very different in their construction. The frames of the series one seats are wood and the corners are lap joints. The early series two seats are normally sprung type with wire frames. The suspension/strapping idea would only work if the frame of the seat were tall enough to keep the webbing in the center off the aluminum seat box. Many early cars and even some ealy 4wds like unimogs use a suspension seat, but its not well suited to the rover.

Originally posted by LH Drive

Looking for some pictures of a late Series 1 or Early Series 2 front seat bottom. I'm going to upholster my seats and would like to make new seat wood frames for my series rover project.
I have newer Series 3 deluxe seats but they make me sit higher than I'd like. My older twill deluxe seats were ratty, torn, broken and sagging in the center of the seat bottom but it was a perfect height. Don't want to mess with the S3 Deluxe seats since I like the older S1/S2 seat style. I'm not a wood worker but will take a shot at making some new wooden seat frames from scratch.

We have some antique dinning chairs from the 1920's and these seat bottoms looks easy enough to reproduce. It's a wooden frame with some cloth strap that's basket weaved and interlocks together for a simple seat suspension. Then some kind of old cushion (maybe horse hair) and upholstery fabric to wrap it all up. I'd like to use this same idea and make some seat bottoms that don't ride too high for local city driving.

I don't have an early Series seat frame to compare the antique dinner chair frames with. Would like to see how the S2 wood frame corners interlock. Do they have a finger joint, bridle joint? I plan to use a local hardwood oak or maple for the frame. Not sure about what material to use for the simple seat suspention, maybe cotton strap, nylon strap.... Newer upholstery foam and my choice of seat cover/hide to finish it off.
So if someone wouldn't mind takeing a couple pictures on the underside of the wooden frame construction. Maybe someone has a bare seat frame laying around too. Thanks

**busboy** · 03-11-2013, 12:19 PM

You must be fairly tall too, like me I found it annoying to always be hunched over so I could see the stop lights and wanted the seat to be lower but that meant it also had to go back more. What I did was remove all the original seats and make a single bench seat from 1/2 inch plywood and glued 2 inch dense foam to it then covered it with the white material stuff (forget the name) then used black arctic vinyl to finish. It's held in place side to side by a strip of 2 inch X1/8 aluminum bolted to each side of the seat box then I used the leather strap for the original center seat positioned in the exact same place to hold down the front of the new seat. Next I did the seat back but before covering it I clamped it in position and drilled 2, 3/8 inch holes through the plywood and also the cross member then used 2 3/8 short cartridge bolts and nuts bolted through the plywood with the round head under where the foam would be. After the bolts were installed in the plywood seat back I then enlarged the 2 holes in the cross member to 1/2 inch to make it easy to align. After covering the seat back the same way but using 1 1/2 inch foam I then bolted the back into position. Now the seat base can be removed easily by just unhooking the leather strap and the seat back by just undoing 2 nuts. To protect the seat base corners I reused the corner protectors from one of the original seats bottoms.

Before you do this just try removing the drivers seat and place a piece of 2 inch foam on the seat base and try it.

**LH Drive** · 03-11-2013, 03:56 PM

Busboy, Yes i've removed the deluxe seats and did the plywood/cushion idea like you mentioned sometime back to the driver side only. I'm 6" tall and was amazed how much more leg room I had when sitting against the tub. Thats the reason i'm trying to make these seat frames but stay within the original seat configuration. Your bench seat idea looks like it works great. Post some pics.

Ike, I have an S3 with the adjustable sliding seat base bracket. The only real problem I see by mounting S1 shovel seat backs to the tub bulkhead is the bottom will be able to move closer to the wheel but the seat back will not. I'm gonna have to swap out my metal seat bracket for a non-adjustable frame. The metal frame is about 1 inch off the aluminum seat base and with the added 3/4" wood frame I should have some room for the strapping/suspension. Would like to see what the S2 sprung type wire frame looks like. I'll try making a square steel rod frame to attatch the strapping on and then sandwitch this suspension between the foam and wooden frame to keep the strapping suspension from sagging to close to the aluminum tub. Might have to try out a few different types of seat bottoms and see whats better for my use.

**busboy** · 03-11-2013, 06:33 PM

Originally posted by LH Drive

Busboy, Yes i've removed the deluxe seats and did the plywood/cushion idea like you mentioned sometime back to the driver side only. I'm 6" tall and was amazed how much more leg room I had when sitting against the tub. Thats the reason i'm trying to make these seat frames but stay within the original seat configuration. Your bench seat idea looks like it works great. Post some pics. .

Just went looking for the camera and I think my wife has it in her purse, lol. Cell phone won't be good enough so tomorrow.