It has been awhile.
I’ve continued to work on the Stude off and on over the last couple of years. It has mostly been a matter of putting things back together, and troubleshooting when there’s a problem (for example, my headlights wouldn’t work, so I busted out my trusty voltmeter and went through the system to identify the fault. It ended up being a faulty dash switch.) But mostly it has been waiting for the upholstery shop.
Which apparently closed. I’d been in contact with the owner, who kept saying, “yeah, the seats are stripped down and we’re ready to start on them,” but then wouldn’t give me a date to bring the car up, and then stopped answering the phone.
So I made a decision—I’m going to do as much of this as I can myself. To that end, a visit to Studebaker John landed me with a set of front and rear seats out of a 57/58 Silver Hawk. I’ve decided to go back to a bench seat front because it just looks right. But for that to work for me, I’ll need to modify them. First. I’ll need to notch the lower front of the seat so I can shift gears, and, second, I’ll need to modify the seat backs to accept headrests (since I’m adding shoulder harnesses, the headrests are needed for safety.) I’ll still take the seats in to be recovered (along with the door cards) but I plan on doing everything else: headliner, carpets, wind lace…so stay tuned.
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| Test fitting. That vinyl is a bit stiff. (Careful observers will note the ceiling has been insulated.) |
