MTFCA Forum

Getting ready to rebuild and reupholster the seats in my 1923 runabout. As I investigate and document the original seats I discovered these two sheet metal bands that are nailed from the bottom wood frame to an upper section. I presume this was to keep the padding from being in contact with the interior of the body and made the side upholstery more firm.

Yep. Stiffener needed behind the hip pad upholstery.

Mark if you could post the pictures of the framework and wood as you go along that would be appreciated I have a 25 I will be doing some time in the future I think they're probably pretty similar thanks

No problem. I document everything photographically when I dismantle something. The combination of being both dyslexic and a little obsessive.

My 21 Touring has the metal bands in it. My 24 Coupe has them also.

Mark

this is an exact copy of the original I had. It differs from yours in that it screws down into the seat frame. I thought a lot more about these than probably warranted as I was leery of putting a seat frame down on it, but that's the way I found it and that's how I replaced it...

My car is a low-cowl, steel firewall car (mid calendar year '23)

Mark: I wonder if that is the metal piece you asked me about? I've seen them many times, but just didn't recall the part at the time. Sorry.

Yes Larry. I guess I didn’t describe it’s location and design very well when I asked you. Mike at Classtique was also scratching his head when I asked him too. I sent you these pictures the same time I posted them here.

This is the back seat of my Touring. You can see how the stiffener is attached here. My car also had metal plates in the doors.

Will, that's the same as in my early 22 touring also (they were really a 23's low cowl body and had the 2 man top like on all the earlier cars. of course that changed mid 22 to the1 man top), 21'a were totally different, but 22 -25 had that "S" shaped iron that screws to the bottom frame rails and goes all the way up to form one of the joining plates for the arm rest to quarter wood. I think this is standard on all touring cars, not sure about runabouts though, I think their rear saddle bracket joins those two wood parts, like the one that Scott posted.

I would save that upholstery for reference. Take a look at some restored cars, and you will see many of them are way off on the location of the upholstery buttons, and also the location of the back rest spring.

Just a whisker off the original post, but as it deals with upholstery, perhaps I can get a question answered. When I bought my '27 Touring (March production date) the rear seat had obviously been redone. The rear seat and back have buttons on the pleats. The front seat was either original or was redone decades ago. It does not have buttons. We redid the front sets with exactly the same number and spacing of the pleats as the seats we removed. Which was original, just pleats, or pleats and buttons?