Corvettes White
11-06-2011, 03:28 PM
LUMBAR SUPPORT SPORT SEAT REPAIR
Technically, I guess I have started to build my ’89 ZR-1. More like the fact that, with times tight, I gave the ’89 to my daughter to use for her senior year in high school. She and a junior driving his father’s ’88 have started an informal Corvette Club at Los Alamitos H. S.
But the seats are embarrassingly bad, so I am rebuilding a new set for her.
Now the lumbar supports are shredded. And at $200 or so to buy replacements, I thought that I would simply build my own.
1 yard of a denim type fabric from Jo Anna’s. $5.00
2 thin wall bicycle tubes 26” x 2-3/4” from Sports Chalet. $12.00
1-20 gram tube Loctite 480 cyanoacrylate adhesive. $25.00
1 trip to the seamstress at the drycleaners. $22.00
A length of tubing to match the existing. NC, just had some.
I carefully measured the existing lumbar carcass and the bicycle tubes deflated. From there, marked and cut the fabric, ironed it, and then sewed. This created a sling to support the tubes for anchorage to the seat frame. One end of the sleeves for the tubes is closed, the other is about one third open so that I could roll the tube up and slide it in. (With the use of talcum powder.) It would have been easer to sew the end closed after the tubes were in place, but I was not going to ask my wife to help me on this, she hates the car.
The Loctite appairs to be working very well. A word of caution, the surfaces to be bounded need to be perfectly clean. I abraded the first ½ inch inside of the cut rubber tube with a wire wheel. Any contamination will cause the bound to fail. A total of six tubes are necessary. But with enough material to make nine, that is what I did, allowing a percentage to fail. Held the ends tight together with spring clamps holding Popsicle sticks to even the load. Cyanoacrylate adhesives need a thin film to work properly. To thick and it will not cure and if to thin and the bonds will not form. So clamp it but do not squeeze it to death.
Then the swimming pool test. Even though the tubes were looking like they were holding air, some revealed a slow leak when held down in the water. And finally the pump up test. Hooked up the pump to a battery charger and it all worked.
George
Technically, I guess I have started to build my ’89 ZR-1. More like the fact that, with times tight, I gave the ’89 to my daughter to use for her senior year in high school. She and a junior driving his father’s ’88 have started an informal Corvette Club at Los Alamitos H. S.
But the seats are embarrassingly bad, so I am rebuilding a new set for her.
Now the lumbar supports are shredded. And at $200 or so to buy replacements, I thought that I would simply build my own.
1 yard of a denim type fabric from Jo Anna’s. $5.00
2 thin wall bicycle tubes 26” x 2-3/4” from Sports Chalet. $12.00
1-20 gram tube Loctite 480 cyanoacrylate adhesive. $25.00
1 trip to the seamstress at the drycleaners. $22.00
A length of tubing to match the existing. NC, just had some.
I carefully measured the existing lumbar carcass and the bicycle tubes deflated. From there, marked and cut the fabric, ironed it, and then sewed. This created a sling to support the tubes for anchorage to the seat frame. One end of the sleeves for the tubes is closed, the other is about one third open so that I could roll the tube up and slide it in. (With the use of talcum powder.) It would have been easer to sew the end closed after the tubes were in place, but I was not going to ask my wife to help me on this, she hates the car.
The Loctite appairs to be working very well. A word of caution, the surfaces to be bounded need to be perfectly clean. I abraded the first ½ inch inside of the cut rubber tube with a wire wheel. Any contamination will cause the bound to fail. A total of six tubes are necessary. But with enough material to make nine, that is what I did, allowing a percentage to fail. Held the ends tight together with spring clamps holding Popsicle sticks to even the load. Cyanoacrylate adhesives need a thin film to work properly. To thick and it will not cure and if to thin and the bonds will not form. So clamp it but do not squeeze it to death.
Then the swimming pool test. Even though the tubes were looking like they were holding air, some revealed a slow leak when held down in the water. And finally the pump up test. Hooked up the pump to a battery charger and it all worked.
George