[DeTomaso] Seats - don't make my mistake

[MikeLDrew at aol.com]

In a message dated 2/25/12 16 26 5, lotus0005 at hotmail.com writes:


> 
> I took my almost 40 year old seats to the upholstery shop.  The seat 
> covers are still in good shape, but the seat foam had turned to dust.  So, I had 
> them re-foam the insides of the seats.  They did nothing to the seat 
> covers 
> I just put them back into the car and I cannot sit in the seats.  The new 
> foam added too much heighth in the seat and too much depth in the back.  My 
> head leans way over for me to sit in the seat.  I have to take them back 
> and explain what the problem is and hope they can correct the problem.
> How will I know how much foam the seats should have, or how much for them 
> to take out.    Thanks, Bill Lewis  
> 

Bill,

The thing to have done would have been to buy ready-made Pantera seat foam, 
which is easily had from SACC Restorations, and some of the Pantera 
vendors.   Then it becomes a no-brainer.

You're already screwed, unfortunately.   So now you just have to guess.

Pantera seats have thin foam for a reason.   The '71 seats are thinner than 
most and have horsehair inside which breaks down, so that you wind up 
literally sitting on the carpet.   Max headroom, min comfort.   The '72 and later 
seats used normal foam, of differing thickness (the later seats had thicker 
seat foam which raised the driver's head which in turn meant that the wiper 
no longer cleared enough of the area in front of the DOT test dummy's face 
which is why the late '73 and '74 Panteras had the wipers re-jiggered to 
park on the opposite side....)

You get to choose how much foam you want.   At least you know what you 
DON'T want; now you can have them try again.   The smart move now is to have 
them sculpt the foam but NOT cover them; try them out and have them do it as 
many times as necessary until you're happy, then cover them.

Mike