1968 Hurst/Olds

Unfortunately, the '68 scanned PIM I have doesn't engine assembly details like the '69 copy I got from Paul. I have an engine assembly list from the H/OCA library that was an Olds or Hurst document, I'll have to check again when I get home.

A few things accomplished...

It appears that the original fan clutch was there in the car.

I also got the seat tracks cleaned up and painted. Evaporust isn't cheap, but amazes me how well it works. I was going to leave the tracks bare metal, but there were a few spots that were just a bit too rough (especially on the feet), and it would be a lot more work to get the finish good enough to just clear coat. Therefore, I ended up hitting them with some Eastwood detail gray.

Any idea who makes a reproduction seat track knob, and are they easily replaceable?

By the way, Dean... I checked all the paperwork I have, I can't find any conclusive evidence on the water pump number...

wow amazing how well those brackets cleaned up. The pump could very well be original, either way it is listed for those years.

Your date code on pump is 128 , so right before May.

Wow, that Evaporust did wonders. I've never used that before.

According to a couple of resources, one Joe Mondello, the 68/69 W-30, HO, W-32(1969) w/ AC or HD Cooling used the 400268/400269/400289 (depending on clarity of casting numbers). Also note the 'O" casting allegedly indicates the AC and/or HDC application.

Brett

Interesting, thanks Brett!

As an update to the scoop and plating issues I posted above, they pretty much “are what they are,” for lack of better terminology. Fusick was helpful, but is a victim to what they get from the Parts Place. They exchanged the RH side scoop, and the second RH one I got is warped similarly (possibly slightly worse) than the first one I sent back, indicating that TPP’s tooling for the RH scoop halves together is likely messed up. I could just return them, but since my OEM parts are missing, these are really the only thing available… I’ll deal with the parts for now… and I’ll have to pay to get the exhaust manifold shroud replated or paint them.

For an actual update on the car, the wife and I started working on restoring the seats a while back. The original driver’s seat was missing, so one was obtained from a parts car (thanks rktolds). The seats in the car smelled horrible from decades in a barn, and we wanted to get them done so we could put them into safe storage in the house while working on the rest of the car.

I couldn’t decide if I should have someone do the seats, or whether we could cover them ourselves. After talking to Ben Rambow (classicolds member Rambow, www.seat-guy.com), he convinced me that we could definitely tackle this ourselves with his installation kit and support.

Here are pictures of the seats as they started. The seat that is absolutely roached was the drivers seat from the parts car. The seats that were from this ’68 don’t look horrible in the pics, but the vinyl was dried out and stiff, there were some tears, the foam was stiff, springs were rusty and mice had done their work. Oh yeah, and that smell was making the whole garage stink...

My wife is extremely supportive of the car hobby and likes the ‘68. She helped tear the seats down when we were luckily enough to have some nice weather in January. After teardown, the seat frames and springs went away for media blasting, then I painted them black.

It was obvious during teardown that there were some spring issues in the front bucket seats due to corrosion (which mice helped accelerate), but the true magnitude of the issues were really obvious after painting. Quite a few broken wires, and even more thin spots.

Ben was going to send spring repair wire for us to work with, but after surveying the extent of the damage, we decided to remove the seat springs from the frames and send them out to Ben for his repair expertise. Reproduction spring assemblies were definitely a consideration, but Ben’s experience with them is that they are stiffer than OEM springs. I am on the taller side, and did not want to sit higher up in the car than necessary, so we went with the repair route.

Here are some pictures of the springs after blasting and painting with the worst damage before getting sent out.

The heavy lifting for this portion was done by Ben, and he has pictures of the repairs in his photobucket folder here:

http://s1200.photobucket.com/user/seat-guy/library/1056-1968HurstOlds?sort=3&page=1

As you can see, he performed a significant amount of wiring splicing using identical replacement wire to restore the seat springs back to a condition as original as they can be. Impressive work, Ben gets two thumbs up! If you ever have questions about your seats or getting them restored, he's the guy you want to start with. Talk to him before you buy parts, as his advice and expertise is invaluable, and he can steer you in the right direction and possibly even provide you the right parts.

This post illustrates another reason why it's always best to start with the best parts or car you possibly can... things are fixable, but it costs time, money, effort, etc...

Before we get into some pictures of the covering process, I figured I would share some information I learned from Ben and this experience about seat foam. I ordered seat covers and foam before tearing my seats down, thinking I would recover them almost immediately, before forgetting how they go back together (and that was months ago, lol). In retrospect, tearing down a factory unmolested seat before ordering will ensure you order the most correct replacement parts, though it’s not a big deal either way.

I only considered using Legendary covers with ACI foam (Legendary sells this as well), as the feedback on both companies has been consistently good from the Olds community. I’ve seen a few PUI covers in person and can tell the difference immediately, the replacement grain/pattern just isn’t as good. Feedback on other foam manufacturers has consistently been described as “too firm”.

Ordering the seat covers is straight forward, but ACI does sell several foam models for A-body bucket seats with different variations in grooves for the seat cover “tucks”. The tucks are flaps with listing wire in them that go from the seat cover, down through the seat foam and attach to listing wire on the seat springs to provide the seat with some 3-D contour and definition. Some buckets will have tucks that run the full lengths of the cushion, others (like the ’68) will have a partial length tuck, and some will have none at all (I believe the later ’71-72 seats are that way). I have attached a sketch showing the short tuck locations on the ’68 seats, this should also apply to ’69 seats.

When you buy the ’68 seat covers and foam, you are supplied with new foam that has no grooves cut into it for the tucks, though you can see where the grooves will nominally be placed on the lower cushion (picture below).

Compare this to the pictures below of the original foam from my torn down seats, which each have two full length grooves (the other lines are just indentions from the original seat covers).

The blank foam provides a slight extra challenge, as you’ll have to cut them yourself. Not a big deal, just a bit more nerve wracking when it’s your first set of seats and Step 2 involves taking a razor blade to new foam. ACI does sell foam that will have the grooves pre-cut, you’ll just have to know to specially request that foam model when ordering, hence why it’s a good idea to tear at least one of the seats down before ordering.

Great info for all those that will go through this process in the future. You're going to be a 68 H/O expert by the end of this.

Been a busy week, so I got behind on the updates...

Here are pictures of the lower seat cover process. I first bolted the seat frames and spring assemblies together to ensure everything was relatively straight and matching between them.

After splitting the frames back up, you can also push on the spring assemblies to ensure the spring ends are seating in the pockets correctly. Mine had a few spring ends that made noise, and some adjustments with a punch and hammer to the spring retainers resolved them. After the springs were properly seated, I replicated the factory isolator pads in the front and side springs to prevent them from making rubbing noise.

The next step is to cut grooves in the foam (since mine was supplied with none), then lay down burlap and jute padding and hog ring it to the springs. After the padding, the foam bun gets attached. Lastly, the listing wire tucks go through the foam to the seat springs, then you make the perimeter attachments for the cover. That's a high level overview...

I attached a picture of the two lowers. Note that the back panel is NOT attached in these pictures, so the upper edge appears loose yet.

With the lowers completed, it was time for the uppers, with virtually the same process, though more challenging.

'67-'68 seats had a side button (instead of center rear button) for the tilt release. A gasket that was approximately 1/4" thick made out of cardboard sat around the tilt button underneath the seat cover. The originals were disintegrated, so I made two new ones per seat out of 1/8" thick cork gasket material. I have a picture of the new gasket installed below. The outer screws are not holding the gasket in place, they are actually for the escutcheon that goes OVER the cover to reinforce the seat cover opening Not sure if it makes a difference, but the OCD in me feels better.

Last picture is the upper cover nearly complete.

Finally, we have final seat assembly... the recline buttons weren't installed yet, there are a few minor wrinkles in the cover (like the lower corner of the upper cushion), but they are close. I had to sneak one out for a picture on a day where we actually had sun without rain.

Overall, I'm really happy with the results. The Legendary covers are an outstanding reproduction of the original covers. The seats are incredibly comfortable, and we were able to sit in the car the for the first time since it came home! The best part is that I fit without requiring seat extenders or having to add a tilt column... mission accomplished.

Now I gotta finish these up with the small details and get to work on the rear seat...

Rear seat time... here's the lower. Pretty straightforward... burlap, jute padding, 5 layers of cotton batting, thin layer of plastic so the seat cover will slide, then install the cover while using copious amounts of profanity. Reused the "wave" listing wires from the original covers.

The wife was a huge help, having two sets of hands on the rear seat makes life much easier, as well as some zip ties to help stretch the cover evenly.

The upper rear seat is a bit trickier, because you have to create the "shelf" on the top of the seat. The factory used a ~3" burlap strip with listing wire in it to set the width of it prior to covering. Per Ben's direction, we used zip ties to set the initial compression, then used the burlap and jute to create the "shelf" for the padding to rest on.

Re-used the wave wires in this one too, other than the lower because it was corroded to heck. Put a cardboard covered listing wire in there.

After we covered it, we had to go back and re-stuff the upper corners to make the contours look more correct.

We are thrilled with how the seats turned out. They feel like brand new factory seats, not too firm, but supportive and comfortable. There are some minor things to finish, but most of them aren't picture-worthy.

Overall, recovering seats isn't super difficult if you watch the Legendary videos, review example pictures, take your time and DOCUMENT the seat disassembly (some of mine were too far wasted to be useful). You need to be patient and not try to rush it. These seats wouldn't be half as nice as they are without Ben's assistance. There are a lot of small tips and tricks throughout that lead to awesome results without a ton of rework. Ben is the man... he has answered no less than 20 emails from me during this project (always within a day), provided coaching throughout, and knows what he is doing. We owe him big time! Thanks again!!!

I will say that the satisfaction of "doing it yourself" makes it worth it, and my wife and I both learned a lot from this project. So if your seats are looking a bit dingy and are due for a refresh, don't be afraid. Talk to Ben (www.seat-guy.com), get his installation kits, some Legendary interior, and go to town!

Luke,

You're doing a great job. I wish I had your patience. I saved my original foam and regret it now. It was a costdecisionat the time but I'd sure like a nice stiff seat now. Of course I drive the crap out of mine, without much consideration to keeping it really nice. Our new puppy christened both the passenger and drivers buckets a couple weeks ago when we left her in the car while we got ice cream. I guess she was pissed (pun intended) that we were eating ice cream 15' from her. Fortunately I had a towel to clean up the mess.

wow they look great. Legendary cover's are the way to go. Convert has PUI covers and not like my the Legendary covers on the 31 such a difference.

Thanks guys! I really don't have much patience, though this project is forcing me to learn some!

Mike, bummer to hear about the pups marking her territory, haha... we use something similar to these in our daily drivers for the dog, and it works really well to keep him contained and comfortable in the back while protecting the interior:

http://hsiendai.com/dog-car-rear-back-seat-cover-pet-mat-blanket-hammock-protector

The wife made our current one because the cheap $15-20 ones don't last very long. Of course, in a '68 without headrests, attaching it becomes a bit trickier.

Those seats look awesome, Luke! Keep up the good work!