[Healeys] Seat pans

Rich C richchrysler at quickclic.net
Tue Jun 10 07:08:34 MDT 2008


>>  I bought a complete Heritage Interior. The seat foams are not molded
>> correctly. If you fit the foam into the seat pan so it fits correctly
>> across the front, there is about a 1 1/2 gap at the back. If you pull
>> the cover down over and under the seat pan you'll have about a 1 to 2
>> " gap.
>>  Heritage is well aware of the problem. I guess new tooling for the
>> seat foam is too expensive.
>> So their recommendation is to stuff whatever you have handy into the
>> space until the gap is filled.

The rest of the story.......

The seat foams are in fact moulded more correctly than you would imagine. If 
you've ever dissected an original seat, you would see that the original 
foams are the same length. However, BMC employed skilled trimmers who 
literally stuffed the rear area of the cushion with bits of whatever to fill 
in the gap at the back as required. We've seen extra foam, wads of cotton 
gauze, even bits of carpet, to do the job on original seats.

If BMC had used full sized and thickness of moulded foam there, the 
individual seat back vs. cushion assemblies would have bound and fought each 
other so the seat back would not be able to come to rest where it should on 
the rear of the frame.

Heritage does a similar practice when they build up their seats in house. 
That way the seat you have them assemble for you will have the fit required. 
And that is why I always have Heritage build the seats for me. We mere 
mortals usually don't have the skills and knowledge those trimmers had to do 
a first class job on what is likely to be the only set we ever build in our 
lifetime. And all to save a few dollars......

Rich Chrysler


More information about the Healeys mailing list