Seat Work

As you may recall from a previous post, I acquired a replacement seat frame back in May 2011, from a very friendly guy on the other side of the country.  It turns out that this is from a 1957 T-bird, which is actually a good thing.  As you may also recall, I consider the '57 seat to be more comfortable than the original '55 or '56 seats.  T-bird cognoscenti might take offense that the seat is wrong for my '55, but most people won't notice or care, and anyone who rides in it will be more comfortable.  Here's a pic of the seat frame in my garage, sitting on the power seat rails.

I've heard complaints that the T-bird doesn't have much leg room for tall people.  While I'm not very tall, both my boys are over 6ft, and my wife has very long legs.  I'd really like to find a way to move the seat a little further back from its normal position to better accommodate them!

The "4-way" power seat (up, down, forward, back) uses two motors, each connected to its own gearbox and screw mechanism.  Every '55 T-bird came with this kind of power seat.  The front-back motor connects directly between the bottom of the seat and the floor, making the seat move back and forth on the sliders.  The up-down motor connects to a mechanism that is much more complex, using a clever series of linkages to raise and lower the sliders, and the attached seat.  The mechanisms on each side are connected by a heavy duty pipe.  Here is what the left mechanism looks like:

Note the shape of the bottom plate.  It "kicks up" at the front and back to precisely fit in a matching depression in the floor pan.  Simply drilling new holes in the floor and moving this mechanism back a few inches may not be feasible, since it will tend to tilt the seat forward.  I'll try looking into this once I have the car back from the shop, but it will also require moving the motor attaching points on the floor.

Here's the seat on the rails in the fully "down" position.  The seat frame is about half an inch off the floor.

 At fullly "up", the seat is 2 3/4" off the floor

This clever mechanism leaves very little room to shift the seat position on the rails.  In the down position, the mechanism limits any further rearward movement of the seat.

Seat fully down and fully forward

Seat fully down and fully back... about 3 1/2" of travel

So I'm not going to be able to move the seat position on the rails, and I suspect I won't have much luck moving the seat rails back on the floor.   Well, at least I found a good deal on a blue '57 seat cover on eBay:

This commits me to a blue-on-blue color scheme for the interior, a direction I started down last August.  Uncle Cord has finished repairing the steering wheel, and is eager to paint it.  I think I will keep the current dark blue-green color on the dash and garnish rails around the top edges of the cockpit, and paint the lower part of the dash to match the medium (Dresden) blue of these seats.  The steering wheel should match the green of the dashboard.
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I try to fix the things I know are shortcomings on this car... brakes, handling, insufficient insulation in the cabin floor, the seat...  These seem like "defects of character" in what is a beautiful, elegant car.  Since I haven't driven this car in recent memory, there are probably many others.  Some of them I can change, some of them I will have to live with.  Still, its far too easy for me to concentrate on the "defects", and not enjoy the beauty.  It's a little disappointing that I probably won't be able to "fix" the seat.  That doesn't change the beauty of the car.

When I inventory my own "character defects", those things in me that I find unattractive or ungodly, I tend to dwell on the negative.  I want to "fix" them, or to be fixed, which sets up a low level anxiety, and contributes to my feelings of inadequacy.   I don't think that is what God want for me... I think he sees me as attractive, with beautiful lines and balanced proportions.  He remembers how he made me, and he knows how to re-make me, to restore me.  He has also allowed for tasteful improvements, and I believe he wants to talk to me about that!