It seemed like a good time to install the front seats in the car. These are used seats from a car I scrapped. They are only temporary; they're in great condition, but are too modern for this car. They are also free.
I could only get one bolt out of four through the floor and into a clear area underneath. The other three will need nuts welded into the floor. Drill clearance holes through the floor where they will go. I welded nuts onto thick plates that also have holes in them. I had a couple of welds that were not good. They looked like fat blobs just laying on the metal. I ground them off and turned up the heat. Now they are nice and melty looking. You want welds to look melty, because that's what they are; melted (and fused) metal. A small bracket like this will go bright red hot from the heat!
How hot do you want your welds? Here's a bolt I was using to hold the nut to the plate while welding, and I carelessly tossed it onto my garbage can lid. It melted into the lid and is stuck there. Yes, I use the top of my garbage can as an impromptu workbench.
I welded the plates over the clearance holes in the floor. This much will do. Incidentally the seat was in and out a dozen times getting and checking the fit. All part of custom fabrication.
Here's one seat bracket secured, using a small cutoff of round tubing as a vertical spacer.
One seat in, one to go. It's functional and comfy, and good enough for now. Doing just one seat probably took me 2-3 hours total. There's a lot of fussy fab work, and each corner is different, so they must be fit individually.
The car did not come with a gas pedal. The stock style is available, but to add a racy flavor, I used this competition style pedal from Moon. It's a beautiful piece, and a pretty easy install. It really is necessary, as it is one of the signature pieces of the car. Tell me that is not totally cool. See, you can't.
Believe it or not, there was a time before cars came with 100 airbags in them. And before that, there was a time when cars came without seat belts. Really. Of course that was 50 years ago. Since I wanted to add some seat belts to the '58, I furthered the race car vibe with these competition style lap belts. If you're going to add seat belts, make sure you have thick, wide washers installed beneath the floor to resist the bolts from pulling through the comparitively thin floor skin in an accident. I actually welded small washers over much larger washers to achieve this.
One last thing. I have my excellent wiper arms here, and some brand new reproduction wiper blade assemblies. Well, for what I saved on the arms, I spent to get the blade assemblies; they were $40. They are stainless steel, and what can I say, you just can't go to your local auto parts store for these babies. At least they should last a long time, since I don't plan on abusing the car in bad weather.
Snap, snap, click, click, and they are done. Simple and neat. Good looking too.
It seemed like a good time to install the front seats in the car. These are used seats from a car I scrapped. They are only temporary; they're in great condition, but are too modern for this car. They are also free.
I could only get one bolt out of four through the floor and into a clear area underneath. The other three will need nuts welded into the floor. Drill clearance holes through the floor where they will go. I welded nuts onto thick plates that also have holes in them. I had a couple of welds that were not good. They looked like fat blobs just laying on the metal. I ground them off and turned up the heat. Now they are nice and melty looking. You want welds to look melty, because that's what they are; melted (and fused) metal. A small bracket like this will go bright red hot from the heat!
How hot do you want your welds? Here's a bolt I was using to hold the nut to the plate while welding, and I carelessly tossed it onto my garbage can lid. It melted into the lid and is stuck there. Yes, I use the top of my garbage can as an impromptu workbench.
I welded the plates over the clearance holes in the floor. This much will do. Incidentally the seat was in and out a dozen times getting and checking the fit. All part of custom fabrication.
Here's one seat bracket secured, using a small cutoff of round tubing as a vertical spacer.
One seat in, one to go. It's functional and comfy, and good enough for now. Doing just one seat probably took me 2-3 hours total. There's a lot of fussy fab work, and each corner is different, so they must be fit individually.
The car did not come with a gas pedal. The stock style is available, but to add a racy flavor, I used this competition style pedal from Moon. It's a beautiful piece, and a pretty easy install. It really is necessary, as it is one of the signature pieces of the car. Tell me that is not totally cool. See, you can't.
Believe it or not, there was a time before cars came with 100 airbags in them. And before that, there was a time when cars came without seat belts. Really. Of course that was 50 years ago. Since I wanted to add some seat belts to the '58, I furthered the race car vibe with these competition style lap belts. If you're going to add seat belts, make sure you have thick, wide washers installed beneath the floor to resist the bolts from pulling through the comparitively thin floor skin in an accident. I actually welded small washers over much larger washers to achieve this.
One last thing. I have my excellent wiper arms here, and some brand new reproduction wiper blade assemblies. Well, for what I saved on the arms, I spent to get the blade assemblies; they were $40. They are stainless steel, and what can I say, you just can't go to your local auto parts store for these babies. At least they should last a long time, since I don't plan on abusing the car in bad weather.
Snap, snap, click, click, and they are done. Simple and neat. Good looking too.
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