07.16.08
Safe Cracker Available for Hire
For the last few days, I’ve been sanding all of the old upholstery cemet off the seat buckets, seatback shells, glare shields, door panels, etc. and, at this point, I’ve sanded the fingerprints off my fingers. It may be a few days before I resume that task. The left photo shows a before-and-after comparison on the seat buckets.
The center picture shows how many holes were drilled in the buckets over their 28-year lifespan and that prompts a tale…
The original plans for the GT II show seat sliders that are mounted to the sides of the buckets. I didn’t receive these when I bought the car, but the holes for the stock sliders had been drilled into the buckets. My guess is that the original seat sliders were replaced by a prior owner — and for an understandable reason. The original sliders — there was a left one and a right one on each bucket — were not connected to each other in any way. They were just bolted to the fiberglass buckets. It’s easy for me to see how this could cause a big problem in adjusting the seat positions. There would be a tendency for the seat to twist left-to-right with the two sliders operating independently of each other. One might lock in while the other didn’t. Thankfully, the car I received had a different design.
The picture with the seat slider shows a new slider (bought from Chirco in Tucson) with the old mounting hardware. The black cross-straps ensure that the two sliders move in unison, eliminating the tendency for the seat bucket to twist. This is the setup that came with my car — vastly superior to the original Bradley design.
The sliders that I received were rusted shut — having been in contact with wet carpeting in the car — so I had to buy two new pairs. I was hoping that the original bracketry (shown in the photo) would work with the new sliders but, alas, it was not to be. The rear brackets come pretty close to being OK — if I’m willing to allow those big wallowd-out holes that someone cut into the buckets to allow for bolt clearances — which I’m not (see the center photo). The front brackets are way off with the new sliders. Also, the seat sits a tad too low — resting directly on the spring wire that connects the two locking cams on the sliders.
I’m going to need to devise some new bracketry to hold the seat buckets but, before I do that — or, maybe in conjunction with that — I’m going to need to patch all of the holes in the buckets and reinforce the areas where the buckets will attach to the sliders. This isn’t a big deal — just one more task to undertake.
Then again, a little metalwork might be just the thing to do while I’m growing a new set of fingerprints.
