I am trying to do my seat install on my 78 and found out that I am short about 1/2 of the wires that hook the cover through the foam. Any ideas? I called the local shops and they have nothing, not even another kit.

 

Ecklers carries seat installation kits...I saw them in the catalog just last night.

 

Not to be a jerk, but won't stainless craft wire work fine?

I can't imagine that upholstery shops use anything fancy for this task.

Steve

 

wire coat hangers work also

vc

 

A complete wire kit is about $25 from most all of the Corvette parts vendors. I strongly recommend you get one to finish your job. Coat hanger material is not heat treated and will permanently bend the first time you sit in the seat. The original wires are wavy so that the wire clips can find a "home" and stay there. Good luck with your refurbish.

 

Are you talking about hog rings? If so, Eastwood has them and the special pliers.

 

Give us a little more info,, I did mine in the fall and found the kits lack hogrings and rods.

The hog rings are easilly found locally, and for the rods, I used hingewire, its springsteel, it will keep its shape. If your talking about the differant length hooks you should have the right amount unless your not install them at the correct spots.

 

I'll repeat myself... The long wavy rods [which is what you are asking about, I think] must be hardened so that they won't take a permanent set when you sit in the seat, and must be wavy so as to keep its end of the clips from sliding to a different position when you sit. If you have some "other" wire with these properties, go for it and cross your fingers that it works. Hench my suggestion to just get a seat wire kit with all the factory-equivalent stuff.

 

I bought an installation kit from Wilcox, with some extra hog rings and clips. I have enough of the long rods that feed into the seat pieces and I am re-using the wavy rods, but I do not have enough of the wires (different length hooks) that hook onto the long rods and go through the seat foam. I used the same number that were on the original seats, but only have enough to do one seat bottom and one back. I live in Northern BC, and ordering another installation kit from a US vendor takes some time, not to mention the fact that I don't need the entire kit... Imagine how frustrating this is.

 

OK, now I'm understanding that the different length clips are what you don't have. You can use different wire for that, but it will be a bit more difficult. Just take one of each sized clip (that you still have) and measure them from end-to-end [stretched out, if you need to]. Now decide how many of each you will need to replace and where they should go (hopefully you marked down those things as you took the seat apart. Get some safety lock wire (non-corroding wire used to tie nuts to bolts)...you can get it at an auto racing supply shop. Now make some new loops of this wire [maybe a couple of rounds for each clip] that fit over the seat cover wires at each location where you don't have clips available. Each loop has to be the correct length so the seat shapes up properly. Wind the loose ends of these safety wire loops around the middle of that loop to tie them off and set the length. Now, when you pull the original clips and newly formed wire loops through the main seat foam sections, you will have loops to run the wavy wires through. I had to do this same thing when a couple of my clips were "toast". I had been careful to save all that I could at disassembly. I've had no trouble with it since rebuild.

 

My kit came from Wilcox also and was also missing two hooks for each seat. After looking at the problem I decided to omit the last hooks at the top of the back. This might seem dramatic to some but believe me you cannot see the differance, the seats look and feel professional.
Good luck