My Cabinet Build *Updated* Post Mortem

[Howard_Casto]

Ok you know where I said I had to go to a junk yard and get a seat before I get started?

Well never underestimate the bounties of junk when you are in WV. 

Found a tan bucket seat with power everything lying beside the road a mile or two from the house.  It looks like it's been outside for a while so I'll have to take it apart completely clean it and put it back together, but hey, free seat!

It's like a million degrees here right now, so I'll take pics later. 

[Howard_Casto]

Ok here's the seat:

[Howard_Casto]

And here are the controls:

[Howard_Casto]

The color isn't the prettiest thing in the world, but that's what seat covers are for.  I looked at the bottom and while a bit rusty, the motor and gears are still in place, so hopefully I can get it moving.  If not I might look for another one.  I'll start tearing it down tomorrow.  I'll take the gears and dunk em in a rust remover and remove the fabric completely just in case something odd is living inside. 

Honestly the thing is in damn near perfect shape, so I'm not sure why it was thrown out.  Knowing my luck it's got meth hidden inside or something.

I've pretty much had to take all of May and most of April off due to real world stuff, but  things are clearing up so hopefully I can work on this and my software stuff soon.

[Fursphere]

Excellent score for $0.00! 

[Howard_Casto]

I thought so... assuming I can get the electrics working that is. 

Now maybe you guys can help me pick a seat cover.  I'm still working out the color scheme, so it might be best to start with which cover colors I can get. 

Kmart, for some odd reason, seems to have the best covers.  I'm pretty sure the "body" of the cab is going to be red, so these are nice. 

http://www.kmart.com/elegant-usa-seat-cover-low-back-black-red-razor/p-082W874690110001P?prdNo=17

They also have it in a more universal gray. 

http://www.kmart.com/elegant-usa-seat-cover-low-back-black-grey-razor/p-082W880907110001P?prdNo=16

Big Lots always has a bunch of printed ones for 10 bucks, but honestly, even I'm not that cheap. 

Remember before when I said I wanted to go with a tan interior?  Well Walmart has this one which is interesting.

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Bell-Tan-Ostrich-Ub-Seat-Cover/14324173

On the one hand that was more of what I was going for, but on the other, that looks really yellow... I was wanting more of a cream/off-white.


So that's what I've seen thus far.  If you find any interesting ones let me know. 

[isamu]

good catch. Free is always good

why so hot in west virginia right now? Isn't there a big storm around the area?

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah, it was a build up to the storm.  Right now it's ok but today it was around 85-90. 

[BadMouth]

The ones from Kmart that you linked look nice, but they won't work on that seat unless they come in a highback version.

Personally, I'm tired of all the red and black driving cabs, although mine is black and red and I have a red and black cloth seat on standby. 
It's hard not to prefer the color of Outrun.

That seat will be cool if the motorized adjustments work.
You could even hook up the seat adjustment motor in Hard Drivin!
(although that would be a pretty big time sink for little reward)

When I feel like avoiding work today, I'll look at seat covers.

[Fursphere]

Personally, I'm tired of all the red and black driving cabs, although mine is black and red and I have a red and black cloth seat on standby. 
It's hard not to prefer the color of Outrun.

So..  what would you prefer to see? 

I have a rather different concept idea for mine, but I'm still hunting for the right "pieces" to make it work.

[BadMouth]

Personally, I'm tired of all the red and black driving cabs, although mine is black and red and I have a red and black cloth seat on standby. 
It's hard not to prefer the color of Outrun.

So..  what would you prefer to see? 

I have a rather different concept idea for mine, but I'm still hunting for the right "pieces" to make it work.

People shouldn't build their cabs based on my preference.
I'd just like to see something different.

I think these seats on a black cab with orange t-molding would look sweet:

I'm considering it for my twin build, but am waiting to see if I find a deal on seats that I like better.
I have similar red and black seat and it's comfortable, but a tight fit.  Any friends larger than myself won't fit.
While I have other projects I'm trying to finish, I'm holding out for sporty looking real leather seats from a junker.

......or bright yellow....or bright green.....or bright green and blue.....or blue with white muscle car stripes......or the Devil Z

[Fursphere]

I really wanted those same seats for my cabinet.  I wasn't going to pay $250 + shipping for one though. 

[Howard_Casto]

Now see I like the color scheme of those posted, but they are a bit "racery" to me. 

Looking for more of a sports car look myself. 

Yeah I was just looking at the color schemes and patterns in those links I posted, they generally have them in a few styles. 

The reason I originally wanted cream colored seats was because of Outrun actually.  If you think of the older Ferrari's they were typically painted red with black trim, had black or tan carpeting, and cream leather seats.  A lot of the nicer American sports cars (Camaros, firebirds, Corvettes ect) use the same color scheme.  I'm not a huge fan of "tan" but in cars like that it seems to work, and like yourself I'm sick of every cab looking the same.  Everything's up in the air atm, so please keep the patterns/styles coming. 


Anyway, I did a bit of work on the seat today before I got rained out.  I took the back off and carefully undid all the staples to remove the fabric.  If you find a seat by the side of the road step 1 is to make sure there isn't a small family of mice living inside.    That took me the better part of an hour.   

Anyway now the the seat is in a few pieces I'm getting a better idea of what shape it's in.  The foam is flawless, it isn't compressed or flaking off or anything.  The frame has a decent amount of rust in the unpainted areas, but it was outside, what do you expect?  Upon inspecting the seat I found another set of controls.  Apparently this was one of the fancier seats with water heating/cooling.  Either that or it's used for air cushioning... I'm unsure but there are a lot of controls on the thing.  Now I'll never be able to use that, but it's still good news because that means the foam is removable from the frame (the plastic bladder from a water system sits behind the foam.)  The motors for the seat look brand new as does the wiring going to it.  Probably because it had some sort of cover over the entire assembly. The incline gears are flawless and they should work fine but the worm gear that controls forwards/back is really rusted, probably because it's on the ground.  But I did turn the gear with a set of pliers and it moved along the track pretty freely, so I should be able to get it working. 

I'll have to figure out the wiring before I attempt hooking it up, but it should be simple as there are only 4 wires coming out of the main cable.  I figure a old pc power supply should supply enough wattage to move it.  Maybe not with my fat butt in it, but still.... 

I'll try to post pics in a little while but like I said, I got rained out.  (There's no way that things coming inside until it's stripped bare to ensure lack of mice.)

[BadMouth]

I'm not a real big fan of seat covers.  (but I am a fan of getting things for free and building stuff cheap!)

The seat cloth doesn't look like it has any rips or anything.
If you've got them removed anyway, soak them in the washer with some kind of stain remover and see how well they clean up.

If they still look dirty, maybe dye them darker brown with RIT dye.

I tried using spray on dye to turn seats that color black before and they turned out an uneven chocolate color and very stiff feeling.
Definitely do not recommend going that route.  (That was in my old '83 TransAm    )

Also if we knew what the seat came out of, you might be able to find new skins.

[Howard_Casto]

Well it's funny you should mention that.  I still hadn't removed the cloth from the head rest so I popped it out, and a Nissan logo was on the bottom.  Hopefully that should narrow it down.  If I could find a copyright somewhere on one of the parts that could narrow it down further. 

I debating if I should throw them in the washer right now.  These seats have metal splines instead of plastic ones, and while I'm not worried about them rusting (they usually have a coating) I am worried about tearing up the washing machine.  I might be able to stuff them in a sack or something.  Or I could go to the nearest laundry mat and ruin their washers. 

I've had mixed results with the spray on dye.  Tried it on my dash in the Camaro and it refused to stick right.  But I restored the rear shade to like new color... so I dunno. 

I had to take the incline motor off to get the cloth off anyway, so I just went out and hooked it up to an old power supply.  As expected it works just fine.  So that's one down.

The rain slacked up so I managed to get outside and take pics.  I'll post them this evening. 


In terms of seat covers I'm perfectly ok with getting fairly high end ones or getting custom skins.  I had planned on spending 50-100 bucks at a junk yard on a seat anyway so I'm ok with putting a bit of money in this one.  It's just in regards to the generic seat covers, all the expensive ones were really ugly imho. 

 

[Howard_Casto]

Ok going by a little ebay snooping I *think* it's from a 86-89 Nissan 300zx

[Howard_Casto]

Well I put em in the washer, added some detergent, a cap of Oxy Clean and one "Cactus Jack's one shot Laundry Bullet" so either they'll come out really clean, or they'll fall apart. 

[Brian74]

My cab is yellow. I was either going to keep it or go orange and black or redo the yellow and make it black and yellow. My vertical cab is lime green and blue. Gotta mix it up )

Sent from my SGH-T989 using Tapatalk 2

[Howard_Casto]

Ok pics as promised...


As you can see, the cloth isn't that bad, even before washing and most of the seat is relatively rust free.  Those worm gears on the bottom are roached though, so like I said before, I'll want to dunk those in rust remover or something. 

[isamu]

Yeah the cloth is not bad at all. Looks like it's a pretty sturdy seat. Have you decided on what kind of cockpit/racing cab you're gonna mount it on yet?

[Howard_Casto]

I really don't have space for a full sized cockpit (got too many cabs already) so I thought I would try something different.  There won't be monitor, I'll just hook the whole rig up to the big screen.  The seat will be mounted on your standard sega style raised platform, but the floor will slide under the seat platform until the dash area is over top of the seat... sort of like a tv tray.  The pedal section will fold forward towards the seat so when not in use it'll take up about as much room as the seat by itself. 

So basically when expanded it'll look a lot like fursphere's, only with the monitor section missing. 


I might not be able to pull that off, if not I'll probably do a roll cage style that dis-assembles. 


I got the covers out of the washer.  They came out really clean so aside from being the ugliest color scheme ever, they turned out ok.  There was a weird smell on the headrest fabric after I washed it, so there might be some mold... I'll spray some bleach on it tomorrow. 

The only thing that worries me is the weight of the seat.  I can understand why most rigs use manual seats now because with three motors and gear assemblies, the thing weighs a ton.  I see casters or sliders in my future. 

[Howard_Casto]

Got to work on it a bit more today.  I started disassembling the lower portion of the seat.  I had to move the seat forward to remove all the bolts, so I wired the whole thing up to a power supply and to my surprise those rusty worm gears work just fine.  It's a little squeaky towards the end, so I'll still probably add some rust remover and grease the whole thing.   

The up/down adjustment motor doesn't seem to work though, but I'm pretty sure it's a wiring issue as I don't hear anything binding.  I'm not super concerned about it anyway.  So long as the forward/back and the back incline work (which they do) It'll be functional for my purposes. 

I took the fabric off the bottom of the seat... it seems to be ok as well, I'll throw it in the wash tonight.  The foam for the bottom seems to be even cleaner and in better shape than the back rest, which seems odd to me.  I'm going to take the bottom of the seat completely apart later....   it's super rusty on the unpainted areas and it's lined with that nasty horse-hair-like material which I didn't even know they still used.  I'll pop the foam off, remove the hair and replace it with some memory foam and vinyl screen mesh.

So I'll do a final rust-cleaning, check over the wiring and re-assemble tomorrow hopefully. 

[Howard_Casto]

Ok more slightly uninteresting pics!

Since I had the lower worm gear assembly and the incline motor off the frame to remove the fabrics, I decided to bring them in the house and clean them up a bit.  Once I took a bit of soap and water to them, there was very little rust.  I took a BBQ brush and some sandpaper and cleaned the crap out of the worm gears and as you can see they are pretty much rust free at this point.  You'll see a bit of rust on the one side but that's because the assembly is in the way.  When I hook it back up to the switches I'll power it up, move it back and get that end.  The lower fabric is in the washer as we speak, so I'll see how that turns out. 

I don't really think I need to re-spray or treat any of the remaining rust spots.  You won't see this stuff anyway and the only real rust remaining is on a bit of tin bracket that holds the wiring loom in place. 

[Howard_Casto]

Well I got the seats completely apart and removed all that horse hair nastiness.  Then I took a grinder to the metal to get all the rust off.  It's mostly clean now.  I took a look at that up/down motor and although I can't find anything wrong with it or the wiring, I can't get it to function. I believe that it might just need a lot of power to operate, because that giant rusted spring you see in the pics is part of the tension on that particular drive.  I might hook it up to a car battery to get it in the position I want and then be done with it. 

I looked up the purpose of the horse hair and it's not really padding... it's supposed to keep the foam from rubbing against the springs and flaking off.  So I'm thinking I could just put a bit of cloth in there or something similar. 

Anyway, I should be able to assemble it tomorrow and if so I'll post pics. 

[Howard_Casto]

You know I got a second wind this evening and thought "well I'll just put the fabric back on and reassemble everything this evening."  That was at around 7... it's almost 12 now and I'm still not 100% done.   

Anyway I replaced the horse hair with some vinyl screen I had lying around... it seems to have done the trick.  As you can see in the pic I didn't get all of the rust off of it, but it's pretty clean and nobody will ever see it anyway. 

My next obstacle will be the mounts.  The rear mount holes are pretty standard but the front ones are both angled, with the passenger side having a compound angle!  I thought they might have been bent, but upon further inspection, nope, they are cast that way.  After I get those done I'll put the worm gear back on and I should have a complete seat. 

[Howard_Casto]

Well it's back in one piece. 

I managed to get everything re-assembled this time and then some.  While adjusting the foam, I found the air bladder motor disconnected and roached inside the upper seat.  I took it apart, cleaned it up, re-assembled and fixed a few busted tubes and it's actually good to go!  It's pretty awesome actually.  It has three controls for a various lumbar area, one for the "wings" on the outside of the chair so that it holds you in, and one on the butt area.  It's extremely comfortable.  I also took some 2x2's and fixed the mounting issue but attaching those to the convoluted mount points.  Or so I thought.  When re-assembled the chair leans to one side.  Everything on the chair is right as are my mounts so I can only assume that the mounts are lower on one side than the other.  I'll sick a 2x4 underneath  the low side for now, but I'll have to carefully measure and build up that side's mount later on.   

For now at least it's a moveable chair so I can start building a cab around it! 

I'll take pics in a little bit but I need to hunt up the good camera as it records video....  seat pr0n time. 

[BadMouth]

http://wvmetronews.com/seat-from-vehicle-used-in-shooting-sought

[Howard_Casto]

Remember BM, I have access to power tools and areas where nobody will ever find your body.   

Good camera is on charge.  I'll post a vid sometime tonight. 

[BadMouth]

Remember BM, I have access to power tools and areas where nobody will ever find your body.   

 

When re-assembled the chair leans to one side.  Everything on the chair is right as are my mounts so I can only assume that the mounts are lower on one side than the other.  I'll sick a 2x4 underneath  the low side for now, but I'll have to carefully measure and build up that side's mount later on.

I hope it's just the mounts and the chair feels right when you sit in it. 
Everything has worked out pretty cool so far.  It would suck to not be able to use it after all this work.

[Howard_Casto]

Oh yeah I stuck a 2x4 under it like I said and it's *almost* level... I'll probably have to shave a little bit off of it to get it perfect.  It would have to be the mounts... they are crazy, one's at a 45 degree angle from left to right! 

I've been sitting in it to make sure my fat ass doesn't bog down the power supply I'm using to run the motors. 

[Fursphere]

Buy a pack of door shims from your lcoal hardware supply.    I use them a lot when fine tuning things like this.

[Howard_Casto]

I've got some but I'm afraid it would look ugly.  I might resort to them but I'll try it the hard way first. 

In the video dept there seems to be something wrong with my camera... I think that the battery has went bad.  I'll take a look at it tomorrow but I can always post a cruddy 320x240 vid from the old junk camera. 


I'm still trying to figure out a color scheme in my head that might work.  After cleaned the outside of the seat is a rich chocolate color, but the middle is the most hideous, worn out shade of tan you've ever seen.  The wings on the seat back are huge as well, so I doubt I could get a seat cover to fit well save a custom 200 dollar one which would defeat the purpose of getting the seat for free.  I'm still open to suggestions on that one. 

Anyway, tomorrow is going to be a busy day, but if I get time I might whip up a prototype H-shifter. 

[Howard_Casto]

Heh... I found the car it came out of... not literally of course, but the same model and color scheme.

All I can say is ugh... that's a lot of tan. 

http://www.dealsonwheels.com/cars/nissan/300zx/1985/Dn8663n5

[Fursphere]

If its all fabric, and you've already taken all the fabric off, just die it black. 

[Howard_Casto]

I'm not real fond of that idea... right now it's a ugly color scheme, but it's clean and looks ok.  Dye is really unpredictable, especially on weird materials like the suede on the sides.  Besides, my back is still sore from tugging and pulling on that thing to get the fabric in place.  It had something like 40 attachment points. 

[Fursphere]

Well, that's why I said black.  You can keep adding dye until its all black.  

Other colors I completely agree - you'll never know what you'll get. 

[Howard_Casto]

Fair enough..... I think it's one of those deals where I'm just going to have to think on it a while and maybe shop around with different covers/dyes. 

I FINALLY got the Camaro ready for inspection so I'll take it down tomorrow and while I'm out I'll look around town to see what I can find. 

[Howard_Casto]

Ok here are tow of the most boring youtube vids you'll ever see.  I stupidly waited until everybody left before I did these so I didn't have anybody to hold the camera while I worked the controls, but you get the idea. 




Pics to follow.

[BadMouth]

I think it's a pretty sweet looking seat! (and power adjustments to boot!)

[Howard_Casto]

You know, thinking on it a while I do remember one car that had a similar color scheme:



I might try to work with it, I dunno. 

I forgot to post pics last night didn't I?   Man I was tired.... getting the Camaro ready for inspection, I set today aside for it.  And it passed, so that's good.     

I got done early so I've got the rest of the day to fool around. 

Here's some additional pics....

The cleaned up seat, which looks pretty new aside from the fact that I didn't get that one pleat towards the back tied down exactly right (the wire broke off so I had to improvise).
The air bladder controls, which are inexplicably on the side of the seat.

And the one flaw, a big tear on the rear panel.  The plate is a hard black plastic and it's used to access the air bladder hoses.  The material covering it is more like the stuff we would put on our arcade panels than seat vinyl.  When I get ready to fix that I'll probably just rip the vinyl off the whole thing and paint it.