Seat Rebuild - To reuse or not reuse padding. And fixed to folding?

I just broke down the disgusting seat/mouse house on my 1974 K20. I'm pretty sure this was the original seat/cover. If you leaned on it your hand would go through it.

The frame was in spectacular shape so that's great.


First question. Is it worth reusing this foam (back only, bottom was beyond repair)? It doesn't seem like it's in bad shape but the parts that were exposed are prone to flaking if you poke at them (that area low center in the pic).


I've been looking for foam and a common complaint is it's too stiff or sits you up higher. Any recommendations? Cheap is always good too.

Also is there a conversion kit to make the fixed seat foldable? I've looked around for a donor seat and they're hard to find in my area (all SB parts are).

I found this and it seems like a pretty good idea. If I went this route, I'd probably reinforce the area that was cut away and put in a stud on the lower screw to make it stronger (and a locking mechanism so it doesn't fall forward. I'd really like to get the stock plastic side covers so it looks stock so I was hoping there might be a weld-in kit. How could this not exist?

After watching this:

I feel inspired to try and repair the foam I have. Everything that was covered and protected feels fresh, just the areas exposed to sunlight are flaky and brittle. I like the idea of stock foam and saving $300 and two weeks for delivery. Time to shop for some foam scraps and contact cement.

Am I making a mistake?

Update - My garage now smells like mouse urine from just storing the seat cushions for 30 minutes.

I'm buying new padding.

I always do new padding. Figure a 30-50 yo truck has been farted on 10-15k times and probably a good handful of sharts.

I also add seat heaters everytime I reupholster a seat. $100 on Amazon and easy to wire/ install

Also, I think I might have an extra folding seat frame. San Diego isn't that far. Are you coming to Phoenix for Dino's?

Lastly, if you buy the upholstery covers from Raybuck, it's priced well and they have a large assortment of materials, patterns, and colors to choose from at no extra cost and only takes an extra week.

Bennyt said:

I always do new padding. Figure a 30-50 yo truck has been farted on 10-15k times and probably a good handful of sharts.

I also add seat heaters everytime I reupholster a seat. $100 on Amazon and easy to wire/ install

Click to expand...

All wise words here….
I did none of that when I had the seat redone on the 86. Foam was not tore up or crunchy at all.
But the drivers side bottom is notably softer a bit too soft and the drivers seat back has a bow in it, a bit compressed.
As to the aforementioned sharts, I recovered with vinyl so there’s a shart proof barrier between the old foam and my @ss!
It’s hard to justify an extra $300-500 in new foam if the original stuff will last a while.
If it was a daily driver I’d have likely replaced at least the bottom.

I used the old padding in my first seat rebuild and still regret it. It's softer than a grandmas couch. I recently did another with new foam. Firm and well worth the extra cost. The old foam in the first one looked fine btw.

I finally got around to driving up to Huntington Beach to get the seat foam. I just can't bring myself to pay for freight.

Seat foam from Classic Industries seemed decent enough. It's a little thicker than stock.

So it was time to prep the seat frame.

My first issue was a nut broke when unscrewing the seat. There was no way I was going to get my tig torch into that space to repair it so instead I just found a nut with the same thread (3/8-16) and turned down part of it so I could weld it from the outside (after boring out the hole a little).

It worked out really well. Also I hadn't used my welder since 2015 so I wasn't sure what happens to Argon or a welder sitting around for almost 10 years.

I finished welding it, I just didn't take a picture of it.

Also a spring was broken inside. I wasn't sure how well it would go welding a spring but it seemed to work fine.

Here it is all repaired.


The biggest problem I had was the under rim of the seat in both front corners became a toilet for the mice living in it before I got it. I could not get rid of the smell. Even a pressure washer wouldn't do it. So I took my new sand blaster attachment to it. That thing worked great but makes a hell of a mess (sand everywhere). It was so hard to get all the sand out of the seat after. I had to drag a rag on a kite string through it multiple times.

Here it is with a rust reform primer and some black satin rattle can.

Finally it was time to put on the upholstery.

It was around this time my wife asked me "shouldn't you be doing this last?" She's probably right but I didn't have a seat and it turns out this will probably not be it's forever seat cover.

I wanted to modify it to make the fixed back fold forward. I have some ideas how I will do that later. So I ordered a cover for a folding seat. I think this was a mistake. The dimensions of it were just off. It wasn't wide enough (praying those seams don't burst) and was too deep. It also didn't cover enough of the back. Additionally I don't like seeing so much of the frame through the cover. Plus I think I'd rather just go with vinyl so it's easier to keep clean. So I should've ordered the fixed-back and just modified it to leave the rear seat brackets exposed.

Anyway - live and learn. This will at least get me closer to driving.

It looks ok. It's a little too tight in some places and it could use a little more padding in other areas. It will work for now.

I bet it stretches a little. Looks great from the pics.

Chris64 said:

Finally it was time to put on the upholstery.

It was around this time my wife asked me "shouldn't you be doing this last?" She's probably right but I didn't have a seat and it turns out this will probably not be it's forever seat cover.

I wanted to modify it to make the fixed back fold forward. I have some ideas how I will do that later. So I ordered a cover for a folding seat. I think this was a mistake. The dimensions of it were just off. It wasn't wide enough (praying those seams don't burst) and was too deep. It also didn't cover enough of the back. Additionally I don't like seeing so much of the frame through the cover. Plus I think I'd rather just go with vinyl so it's easier to keep clean. So I should've ordered the fixed-back and just modified it to leave the rear seat brackets exposed.

Anyway - live and learn. This will at least get me closer to driving.

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It looks ok. It's a little too tight in some places and it could use a little more padding in other areas. It will work for now.

Click to expand...

It looks like the Quality Control inspector has approved the job

FireTruck1984 said:

It looks like Quality Control inspector has approved the job

Click to expand...

The inspector can still smell the mouse.

@Chris64 The seat looks great!