Jump to content

Custom Bench Seat


Murphy

Recommended Posts

Beautiful work, Murray!!  That's one of the most practical, unusual and great looking mods I've seen to a first gen interior!  Who needs buckets if you can get much of the look with the height and comfort of a bench seat?  Are you going to produce a project journal on that?  I'll bet others will be wanting to try that - it's probably cheaper and no more work than converting to buckets and a console.  Nice job, man!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks Dennis! My goal was to insure the seat looked OEM for the Monte Carlo and I've achieved that. As far as a project journal, there's not much to say that was stated in my original post. The magic was at the hands of a skilled upholsterer. Since all the foam was replaced, he needed to narrow the foam on the seat backs just enough to allow for the armrest and disassembling the PUI covers (removing the endpiece where the seatbacks meet) and then narrowing the cover to fit the narrowed foam.

 

Of course, I stripped the old covers off the frames and painted them several times as they are bare metal with lots of jagged edges. Several of the springs had popped out of their respective clamps so I tightened every clamping position. One modification that was done over a year ago to the original benchseat was that I moved the mounting feet so I could get the seat to slide back further. I simply swapped out the seat slider assembly off the old modified bench and installed on the new bench. I'm almost 6' 3" and need the leg room, I added a 1.5" section to the front mounting foot, cut off the rear mounting foot and rewelded the foot in the proper position. The picture shows the front foot modification.

 

The fold-down armrest was a simple disassembly process and painting everything black, the plastic parts received the SEM vinyl paint and the metal parts I used the SEM trim paint. Everything matches perfectly...............

post-732-0-02750600-1425819950_thumb.jpg

post-732-0-20375400-1425819975_thumb.jpg

post-732-0-45693400-1425820002_thumb.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Looks great Murphy.  I did the same thing in my 70 Monte a couple years ago.  I ordered original 70 black cloth material and my upholstery guy made a seat cover for it so it all looks stock.  Most people don't even know and it's so much more comfortable on a drive of any distance to have that arm rest.  I've really enjoyed having it so far and I'm sure you will too.  I'll have to get some pics of my interior posted as well.

 

Ben

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cupholders would really be nice, I've seen a unit that slides into the ashtray slot but am actually thinking about something that mounts on the trans hump but have limited space behind the shifter.........Still working on that one!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah I went with the cup holders that slide into the ash tray slot.  Works pretty good and have a lot of people ask about it at cruise nights and such when I leave it in place.  Love driving the old cars, but nice to have some of those modern conveniences such as arm rests and cup holders :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...