Spring wires under seat foam

danbrennan · 03-20-2007, 08:49:37 AM

I'm replacing the foam and upholstery in my '78 Z28, and am wondering if I still need to also replace the original, broken wires under the foam? When I did my '75 Corvette, I could throw the original spring wires away, but on the '78 Z I don't see how the foam would be supported without them. I didn't see any replacement parts in the Classic Industries or NPD catalogs.

protour73 · 03-20-2007, 09:47:47 AM

Dan....I don't know if the seat wires on your car are the same as mine or not, but I repaired several broken wires on my seats quite easily.

I used some .032 wire I had in the shop and looped it through the hole on one side of the seat bottom and made sure I had the correct length to reach the other side of the seat. I then started braiding the wire, like you would for safety wiring parts, so that the wire would be a double thickness. Was a very simple repair for this project.

danbrennan · 03-20-2007, 10:15:56 AM

Oh, okay. The original wire seemed to me to be some sort of spring steel, since it didn't take a bend very easily, and I've had trouble in the past trying to find spring steel. Was your .032 wire just regular wire, or did you happen to have some spring steel wire around?

protour73 · 03-20-2007, 11:11:42 AM

No....the wire I used was not spring steel. I don't think it is critical to have it be spring steel, just as long as the support is there. That is why the wire is braided, to double it's strength.

cmonson · 03-20-2007, 11:01:32 PM

I just replaced all of my broken wires when I re-upholstered my interior. I was lucky and I bought 2 seats on evil bay for the seat foam.

That being said, I believe you deffinately need the wires intact. Otherwise over time you'll be sitting on the floor. On the seat bottom frame, there are no springs or surfaces from making the foam to not hit the floor.

I would also make the best condition seat frames work on the drivers side. The drivers side in my car typ. see 10X the usage...

danbrennan · 03-22-2007, 01:35:05 PM

In case this comes up for someone else: It looks like music wire, or something close to it, may be what they used on the bottom of the seats. I found 36 inch lengths of it at a local hardware store, in varying diameters. My calipers said the original stuff was around .047 inch diameter, and it obviously failed, so I stepped up to .062 for my repair.

http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalo.../musicwire.php