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Original seat spring repair

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damar2yxr View Drop Down
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    Posted: 17 Mar. 2016 at 8:21pm
Here is a thankless job that I don't plan on attempting again but if you have a hankering for some nice cushy original seat springs here is how I did it.
The seat springs tend to fall apart because of rust and breakage. The springs themselves will break and those individual sections will need to be removed and replaced. The whole spring complex is held together by helical coils that have a tendency to rust and break. I thought that I could bend my own springs from springs made for chairs and such but the bends were too intricate so I resorted to stealing springs from some other roached seats I had. The helical coils are like unobtainium so I made my own. I used baling wire(THIS PART I SHALL NOW EDIT. TURNS OUT WHAT I USED WAS 16GA ANNEALED REBAR BINDING WIRE) that I got from Farm & Fleet, a section of 3/8 rod I think with a hole near the top to accept the wire. I then placed it in my drill press and fed the wire into the hole. I used an assistant to turn on the drill press, guide the wire and turn off the drill press. I stood downwind with the spool on a stick so that it would spin freely..................

OSHA might have a field day at my house but the dang think worked to perfection. I made a whole bunch of really tight coils. I then took those coils and slowly stretched them to approximate the geometry of the existing coils on the seat.

Now came the fun part. I began the process of threading the coils onto the seat. 8 coils per side! That was tedious. Original seats had coils on the circumference that were continuous.......yeah right, that was like impossible, but I was able to overlap and crimp so that it seemed continuous.

I checked to make sure they snapped into the seat pans.
Finally, I used some vintage auto carpet pad to replace the original horse hair/ burlap sack/mouse turd or whatever the crap was they used in the day. I used some white canvas drop cloth material and sewed an envelope of material to slide in a doubled over (2 X thick) piece of pad into. I made it so that it fit over the springs to prevent any slippage. I will probably use some hog clips to really secure it before I put the seat covers on.

Now you may think this all ends on a happy note........kinda sorta.......good 'ol Karl Walck has come out with some of his own seat springs for the CJ2A. They don't use the helical coils, rather they use the more modern spring clips but otherwise they look pretty good. At $150 a set I'd say thats a good value, considering all the time and sore fingers I had to deal with. My daughter wanted to kill me because she stepped on one of the rusty coils I had removed and missed picking up. I can laugh now because the back and forth of "Pull it out Dad"....."No Dad, don't pull it out"......"OK pull it"........"Wait! NO!!!!"....."OK do it"..... was hilarious. Teasing her about the perils of getting "lock-jaw" from Tetanus was memorable. 
 In the end I have a nicely refreshed set of seat springs that I'm very pleased with. Can you do this? 
YES! Yes you can. A jeeper is capable of anything. Is it a good use of your time? You decide. 
GOOD LUCK!



Edited by damar2yxr - 23 Mar. 2016 at 11:58pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Randy Snyder Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 Mar. 2016 at 2:36am
Nice job, David! I would like to see the seat when you get the covers on.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote bretto Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 Mar. 2016 at 12:19pm
Nice job and looks great but my concern with the use of bailing wire. Is this just the run of the mill annealed bailing wire? That stuff is pretty soft and I think it might distort in short time.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote damar2yxr Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 Mar. 2016 at 1:36pm
Yup I know what you're talking about. If you look at the 4th picture that silver colored wire is that soft stuff. I rejected that spool because it was easily deformed. I went back and got a much more stiffer wire. Now that I think about it I think it may have been electric fence wire. I will have to go back to Farm & Fleet and double check that. This stuff will NOT deform.
eat,sleep,jeep

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Hamhog Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20 Dec. 2020 at 1:05am
Do you have any of the coiled wire still lying around?  I'm getting ready to repair my rear seat bottom springs.  I need about 30' of extended wrap.  Looks like you had a good system.
Dave
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote 19Cargo42 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20 Dec. 2020 at 1:33am
I am collecting seat springs from various places in the hopes of getting enough parts to build a set of upper and lower cushions for my front seats. This is very useful documentation. Thank you for taking the time and effort to share with us.

John
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Bob W Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20 Dec. 2020 at 12:58pm
I used screen door closer extension springs that came from the hardware store to make the long coils. Just put one end in a vise and pulled until they looked good.

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Century Spring Corp CS-4 3/8-Inch x 16-3/8-Inch x .054 Inch Long Screen Door Spring

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Hamhog Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20 Dec. 2020 at 1:35pm
Originally posted by Bob W Bob W wrote:

I used screen door closer extension springs that came from the hardware store to make the long coils. Just put one end in a vise and pulled until they looked good.

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Century Spring Corp CS-4 3/8-Inch x 16-3/8-Inch x .054 Inch Long Screen Door Spring


Hey, that looks good! Thanks!Thumbs Up
Dave
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote 19Cargo42 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20 Dec. 2020 at 3:05pm
How many springs did you use per cushion?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Bob W Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20 Dec. 2020 at 4:16pm
I don't remember. They get a lot longer when you extend them.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Oldpappy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20 Dec. 2020 at 5:45pm
I have the spring sets for my seats. The springs are in pretty good shape but all the little coils are rusted through and broken, so this post is very helpful to me. 

I had thought about making my own coils, and do have a drill press, but I like the idea of using the stretched out screen door springs so will probably do that. 
If you can't get there in a Jeep you don't need to be there!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote 19Cargo42 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20 Dec. 2020 at 11:03pm
damar2yxr: I read the description of the rebar binding wire and wanted to ask how it held its shape after you put the loops in? The description mentions that it's soft, but if it holds the loops well, it seems like it would be more economical, (albeit more labor intensive) than the door springs subsequently mentioned. (I'm cheap, I admit it.) 

Thanks,

John
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote damar2yxr Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21 Dec. 2020 at 1:51pm
The wire is holding up great. Mind you they haven't put up with 60+ years of use but so far so good.Big smile
eat,sleep,jeep

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Hamhog Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Dec. 2020 at 12:58am
True Value has the springs for $2.49 each.
Dave
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote JeepFever Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Dec. 2020 at 4:28am
Originally posted by Hamhog Hamhog wrote:

True Value has the springs for $2.49 each.

I was fooling around at lunch break today.   Dave's photos appear to have about 7x-10x the pitch of the wire diameter.   If the springs you are referring to are approx 16",  (close to same length springs as BobW's post),  that means a stretched version is 112" to 160" of seat spring for $2.49.  Smile
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