Seat spring restoration

[w30bob]

Hi Guys,

Is anyone familiar with replacing, or actually restored, the seat springs in the rear seat cushions? I orded a set of "take out" springs online and they arrived today. The seat back cushion springs are fine......a quick soak in Evapo-Rust and a shot of of gloss black paint and they'll be good as new.

But the seat bottom springs are a different story. The larger zig-zag springs are good, but the thinner long coils of wire that run every which way need ro be replaced in certain areas. Once that thin wire gets some rust on it the structural integrity is compromised and they break. I can buy some spring wire and wind my own, but maybe someone has already done this and has already sourced the wire or found long pre-made coils.

Anybody been there, done that?

Thanks,
Bob

[w30bob]

OK.......did a little digging and this will be easy. After staring at these long springs it hit me......the long springs that hold all the zig zag springs together and are all over the outer frame wire are simply over-extended common tension springs. And the dimensions of the wire diameter and coil OD are also common. Finally something simple on this darn jeep.

Regards,
Bob

[Bobber]

So where did you find the springs? What sizes did you order? I replaced my seats with foam, but later went back to the vinyl/leatherette material. I like the give the spring seats have, but will need to recover them. Half the suspension is in the seats
_________________
Rusty, 1952 M38, Koenig hard top.

[G740]

Midwest Military has NOS rear bottom springs with padding and covers.
John

[w30bob]

Hi Rusty,

I'm going to steal them from work.
But extension springs are easy to find..........I know my local hardware store has them, as well as Grainger and McMaster. And they're cheap....even the stainless ones.

The rear seat bottom uses one long spring on the top and bottom to go around the circumference of each frame and 5 springs to run horizontal connecting each zig-zag spring to each other and to the frame on the ends. So that's 2 long springs and 10 shorter ones in total. I counted coils and the long springs have 85 coils and the short springs have 67 coils. The springs are 0.5 in OD with a wire thickness of 0.05 in (or 1/16"). Adding that all up the long springs need to be 5.5 inches long and the short springs 4.5 inches long.

You'll find they come in plain spring steel, stainless, or guitar wire, and in a number of ODs and wire size........so you can make them the same as original or a bit more robust.

I did order a lower from John, but am heading to work now to get some springs and still fix what I have.

regards,
bob

[w30bob]

Rusty,

I raided the spring cabinet at work.......and after playing with a bunch of them I'm of the opinion that compression springs work much better than extension springs! Only issue is you have to get a much longer compression spring than an extension spring for the same number of coils. But the compression springs are much easier (and safer) to over stretch for use on the seat springs. I'm going to play with both types tomorrow and I'll see if I can get some pics.

regards,
bob

[Bobber]

Thanks all for the info.
_________________
Rusty, 1952 M38, Koenig hard top.