Pendexter

I just purchased my 99 FRC a little over a month ago. One of the issues that came with the car was a broken spline on the seat back assembly that goes under the seat.

So off to the interwebs, where I was able to purchase an assembly for a reasonable price. After searching through this forum, I found instructions here:
https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...-adjuster.html

So here's where things get interesting. After taking the seat out of the car, and stripping the foam and vinyl cover off the seat, here's what I find:





In the picture, up is the front (towards the engine) and the bottom of the pic is towards the seat back. The frame of the seat consists of eight high strength wires, connected at both ends to thicker steel rods. The front side is held to the seat frame by two brackets, and the back is held to the frame by four springs.

So here are the problems with the picture:
1. Out of the 8 wires that go front to back, only five were still connected.
2. The steel rod at the front is severely bent out of shape. Pretty self evident from the picture.
3. One of the two support brackets has broken off the front of the frame. (this is related to the bent steel rod)
4. The steel rod that is held by the springs is also slightly bent.

So as soon as I see this, I know that I have a side quest for the day. So off to Home Depot I go, innocently thinking that I'd just replace everything that day. Well, apparently the Depot doesn't carry high tensile strength wires or any type of metal bracket that would replace the broken one. So after wandering the isles for a good while, I decide that high strength zip ties would replace the broken bracket. And once my mind started churning... this happened:





Since I couldn't find replacement wires anyways, I started thinking... and my conclusion was that since the thin wires were actually cutting into the foam, I might as well do the whole lattice using zip ties, which are wider and would theoretically provide more support on the foam.

I purchased a 36" steel rod to replace the broken ones and cut it into the correct length with a dremel. I wrapped the rods with duct tape because the original rods had a plastic cover over it, so I figure a little tape wouldn't hurt, and might help the zip ties stay in place.

EDIT: the zip ties I used were Home Depot 36" Heavy Duty Cable Ties, 10 pack, with a tensile strength of 175 pounds. The higher the tensile strength, the better...

The 36" zip ties get tied around the two steel rods, and the rods are held by springs on one end, and by other zip ties connected to the frame at the other end. I added one additional zip tie weaved through the middle so that they don't move around too much. It's easier to have an extra set of hands to keep everything in place while you put tension on the zip ties, but I did it solo.

The electronics in the black box gets jammed up into the zip ties, and then fastened with smaller zip ties. (I used tiny black ones that you may be able to see in the picture)

I think it's pretty self-explanatory from the pictures, but if anyone has questions, feel free to ask. I heard that the stock seats were bad (and knew from experience), but after replacing the lattice with zip ties, the seat feels pretty good. I'm not falling out of the car when I'm exiting the Vette anymore. It takes a couple of hours to get everything done, but it wasn't a horribly difficult job.

I would recommend you purchase more than one bag of zip ties in case you mess up. For example, if you cinch the zip ties too tightly and end up having all of the ends facing up, and then they are so tight that you can't even get them loose enough to reposition them... ask me how I know

Vetteman Jack

Interesting way to solve a seat problem. Hope it holds up long term for you.

Oh 2 Fun

Wow, that is very revealing !! Thanks for posting and congrats on thinking outside the box.

So tell us how it is actually sitting on it when you're done!

Pendexter

@ Vetteman Jack: Hopefully it holds up better than the original wires The zip ties have a tensile strength of 175 lbs each, but the physics get a little complicated because there are tensile forces from the springs, as well as from your butt when you sit down.

There are 7 zip ties that hold the two rods together, and five that hold the rod to the frame... so if we look at the worst case scenario, the 5 ties are able to take a load of 850 pounds. I stretched the springs as hard as I could, so that might be maybe 150 pounds of tension... so the question is: does my body weight at 180 pounds cause a total of 700 pounds (total) on the five zip ties that hold the rod to the frame...

On the other hand, there is always a safety factor built into a system, so if the zip ties are designed for 175 pounds, it will probably hold 250 pounds of tension no problem... So I guess the short answer will be that I will report back if there are any issues... I'm crossing my fingers, but my I gut feeling is that the zip ties should hold up...

@Oh2Fun: I've had the seats back in the car for about a week now. The first thing I notice is that there is significantly more support on the left side of seat, and it's especially noticeable when I get in and out of the car. Before, I would literally stumble out of the car as there was no support as I rotated and leaned to get out. Now, the seat stays firm, and I get in and out smoothly.

The other thing I noticed is that I'm not falling down into the seat anymore. When I first took the seat apart, I saw that the thin wires had dug into the foam, so that the entire foam support was lower than it should be. It made the seat squishy to the point that I didn't feel like it was providing me any support. Kind of like an old crappy couch. If you look at the original picture, it's pretty obvious why I was having those issues with the seat.

But now with the zip ties, the seat feels like what a seat in a sports car should feel like, which is more rigid and firm (relatively, probably not as nice as a sportco or whatever the Vette racing seat of choice is).

I have no idea how common my issue is... I just recall that I've come across multiple threads complaining about how crappy the stock seats are...