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Messages - 85CougarCobra

61
User Rides / Re: New Addition
Some progress ... "rebuilt" the stock cluster, had to replace the shift indicator and most/all of the bulbs, and buffed out the plastic glass.  Got all of the dew wipes replaced and the chrome trim reinstalled along with the window channel run weather stripping.
62
Body/Appearance/Interior / Re: Headliner install?
Here's a shot of the clip on the front interior windshield trim.  The rear is basically the same if you have metal trim back there depending on model and year.
63
Body/Appearance/Interior / Re: Headliner install?
Pretty straight forward.  You'll need to remove all the interior trim around the perimeter, the dome light, sun visors and associated pieces.  The very front and back metal trim pieces can be a little stubborn ... they are held in with a metal tension/spring clip in the center.  You'll need to apply a little downward pressure/force to pop them out ... Just be careful you don't bend them in doing so.  I have a piece of this trim out of one of my cars now ... I can post a pic later today when I get back to the house so you have an idea of what you're dealing with.
64
Body/Appearance/Interior / Re: SN95 seats DON'T just "bolt to our tracks"?
Quote from: Masejoer – on
I have listed the seats for sale, and have a potential sale already getting lined up. Mostly a waste of money and time, but I'll at least recoup my costs and gain some experience. Just lost some garage floor space and storage of foam/upholstery for a couple years...

I'd love to do this Mustang foam/upholstery swap onto the stick frames, after repairing/strengthening my driver side seat back. I'd also likely refinish the frames, as you had.

Oh man ... sorry to contribute to you selling the seats.  I just went down this rabbit hole through trying to make a set of Corbeau seats work in my car.  I drilled and modified the seat tracks similar to what you were trying to do here and I just wasn't happy with them.  Great seats, just didn't like how they fit in the car.  That's what turned my attention to trying to modify the stock seats and led to all my research and discovery with the TMI options.  You can even just rebuild a stock sport seat with their foam options if you have the usual side bolster deterioration going on.  They also have some interesting foam options that transform the stock seat to a whole different look.  It's a nice alternative and you don't have to worry about fitment issues since your building off of a stock frame.  The main issue is just knowing what seat assembly your working with and then picking the right items to go along with it.
65
Body/Appearance/Interior / Re: Seat upgrade ... attempt #2 ...
Quote from: BCA – on
I have always considered installing SVO's seats in my XR-7, mostly for the extra bolstering but didn't want want to lose the comfort and features of the original seats not to mention the original look and feel of the "waffle iron" upholstery that I personally find very appealing. When Matt originally posted this thread, it was pretty much exactly what I would like to do to my seats someday and I cut and pasted his steps and pictures into Word file and filed it away for my own convenience.

I was able to get nearly all of Matt's photo's back in to the tread, but I did miss a few. That was due to me originally saving only those that pertained to the actual rebuild.

I don't think it can be understated that Matt's work here is extremely helpful whether you plan on doing a similar conversion, restoring, or even just some repair work to your original seats.

Brent

Brent - thank you for the work on salvaging the photos, appreciate it!
67
Body/Appearance/Interior / Re: SN95 seats DON'T just "bolt to our tracks"?
Quote from: 85CougarCobra – on
Quote from: mcb82gt – on
Any idea about my 83/84 Mustang sport seats?  If they are 24 or 26"?

I would like to redo them and put in my Cougar that has LS Cougar seats.

Do you have the adjustable knee bolster or is the base a single piece?  You probably have the 24" low back, I think all the pre '87 Fox Mustang seats were 24" ... but don't hold me to that.  I'll try to snap a picture of the bare frame when I get home later and post it.  You can measure the backs ... just go from the bottom of the back to the top (below the headrest) ... it should be noticeable if you are well past 24".


So here's my physical seat measurement research that hopefully helps.  All of these seats are 85-88 Tbird/Cougar.  The bare frame and foam are from an '85 Cougar GS, The red vinyl seat is from my '86 Cougar GS convertible, and the two tone raven sport seat is from an '87-88 Turbo Coupe.  Without taking apart the sport seat, I don't know if the seat back frame is the same part number as the others, but I suspect it is ... the bolstering and contours of the seat are all done with the foam and upholstery.  The base frames are different with a sport seat due to additional bracketry that controls the side bolster in/out adjustment.  Either way, these particular backs all measure to 24" for a Fox Tbird/Cougar.  My only call out is that the LS/LX seat back might be 26" ... I don't have one of those handy to measure but they have appeared "taller" to me in the past.
69
Body/Appearance/Interior / Re: SN95 seats DON'T just "bolt to our tracks"?
Quote from: Masejoer – on
Can you send me the set of photos from your other thread, so I can piece together what all you did? I can pm you my e-mail address if you don't have them up anywhere, such as dropbox, google drive, etc.

It sounds straightforward, but seeing is telling.

Unfortunately, I don't have them ... sorry about that.  Don't know why, but looks like I must have deleted most of them from my phone. A have a few, but not much that would help without any context.  I did some searching and LMR has a good video that pretty much holds true: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=13&v=tFnsX3tv4fA

I posted the photos directly to the message board, but they must have gotten lost in the move to the new host somehow.  BCA reached out and said that he has them saved.  He's going to try to put them back into the thread over the weekend if he has some time.
70
Body/Appearance/Interior / Re: SN95 seats DON'T just "bolt to our tracks"?
Quote from: mcb82gt – on
Any idea about my 83/84 Mustang sport seats?  If they are 24 or 26"?

I would like to redo them and put in my Cougar that has LS Cougar seats.

Do you have the adjustable knee bolster or is the base a single piece?  You probably have the 24" low back, I think all the pre '87 Fox Mustang seats were 24" ... but don't hold me to that.  I'll try to snap a picture of the bare frame when I get home later and post it.  You can measure the backs ... just go from the bottom of the back to the top (below the headrest) ... it should be noticeable if you are well past 24".
71
Body/Appearance/Interior / Re: SN95 seats DON'T just "bolt to our tracks"?
Quote from: Masejoer – on
So you're running the 90-91 seat foam/upholstery with the 87-89 headrest upholstery? The headrest foam is the same as ours?

Yes.  The TMI foam and upholstery set that I purchased were 90-91 Mustang spec.

These are the TMI part numbers I used:
TMI Cobra Seat Foam (24")              43-73790
TMI Cobra Seat Upholstery (24")      43-73998
TMI Large Headrest Upholstery       43-7305

The seat upholstery kit (# 43-73998) only covers the front seats.  It is an 8 piece set - (2) seat bottom covers, (2) seat back covers, (2) small headrest covers, and (2) knee bolster covers. 

I called TMI and ordered the upholstery set directly from them because I wanted them to customize the materials and color combo. I believe I ordered the foam from CJ Pony Parts because they were the cheapest option at the time. 

All of the pre-made/off the shelf upholstery kits that TMI sells on various websites are pretty much spec'd as stock Fox Mustang interior replacements.  I requested material samples from TMI and the 84-86 Mustang SVO gray vinyl was an identical match to the factory charcoal gray used in my car on the door panels.  If you have a Tbird/Cougar that shares an interior color with the Mustang, then you can probably get an exact material match ... if not, then you'll need to get creative.

I spec'd the charcoal gray for the body of the seats and then went with a black suede for the inner parts.  Because the 90-91 kit comes with smaller headrests, I had to order the larger headrests as an additional option/charge.  You don't get new headrest foam, you just re-use your existing - peel the stock covering off and install the new covering.  I believe the larger headrest used on the LS/LX/Sport/Turbo Coupe/XR7 are the same as the larger Mustang headrest.

Here's pics of the 87 Mustang seats I had in my car (26" high back) and the Turbo Coupe seats (24" low back) that I ended up converting.  The blue Turbo Coupe seats are now what is converted and in my car.
72
Body/Appearance/Interior / Re: Seat upgrade ... attempt #2 ...
Quote from: Masejoer – on
Quote from: mcb82gt – on
This post is incredible, how do we get the pics back and updated.  Would be a shame to lose all that info and work.

I second this - would like to see how this all fits on the stock frames. I'd be willing to throw the images into a folder on my web host, so these aren't stored on the forum itself.

I believe that this is the foam and upholstery set to use? https://www.cjponyparts.com/tmi-upholstery-03-04-cobra-style-sport-high-back-seats-1987-1989/p/U81-V/

For verification, are our Sport/TC seat frames and foam identical to the "1987-89 Mustang Sport Seats"? I've seen that mentioned elsewhere once on this forum.

Thanks, I spent some time on posting the steps hoping it might help those who wanted to DIY their seats.  BCA reached out to me and is going to work on getting the pictures back up (thank you Brent).

I responded in your SN95 seat thread, but this is the foam I used: https://www.cjponyparts.com/tmi-seat-foam-sport-svo-style-for-2003-2004-cobra-style-upholstery-1990-1991/p/SF37-V/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIkdzQ-aK25QIVjpOzCh35lgUfEAQYASABEgIOp_D_BwE#217=985&year=1990

You want 90-91 Mustang foam if you are rebuilding Tbird/Cougar sport seats because both set ups have the 24" seat backs.  If you're starting with Mustang seats as your base, then you'll want to buy the foam for the corresponding year(s) Mustang.  You can use 26" high seat backs in a Tbird/Cougar if you so desire.  The only "issue" I had when I had stock 26" high Mustang seats in my car was that between the additional height and the tall headrests, the headrests would contact the roof of the car when I moved the seat back to access the backseat.  I had to rotate the headrest down, but I could still fully move the seat back ... hopefully that makes sense.
73
Body/Appearance/Interior / Re: SN95 seats DON'T just "bolt to our tracks"?
Quote from: Masejoer – on
Do those Fox mustang "cobra" version sets work on our frames? Are the frames that similar, or are they identical to Mustangs?

Yes ... sort of ... ha!

Fox Mustang seats are direct bolt ins for our cars.  All you have to do is remove the seat from the Mustang and then swap out the seat brackets from the Mustang ones to the Tbird/Cougar ones and then install them in your car, no drilling or modifying involved.

As far as the actual seat construction and inner frames, there are some variations from year to year.  The Tbirds/Cougars used a 24" seat back, Mustangs used both 24" and 26" ... they flip flopped back and forth between years and possibly models (GT, LX, convertibles).  In my research, I've found the following to basically hold true for Mustangs:

-87-89 used the 26" "high" seat back fully articulated seat with adjustable knee bolster and the large headrest
-90-91 used the same seat, except with a 24" "low" seat back and small headrests
-92-93 went back to the 26" "high" seat back, but kept the smaller headrest, and the adjustable knee bolster went away and was just integrated into the lower part of the seat foam as a single piece. 

If you tear down a Tbird/Cougar sport seat (TC, Sport, XR7) ... the inner frames should match a 90-91 Mustang GT/sport seat, the only overall difference is the smaller profile headrest ... but you can pick whichever style headrest you prefer, they all install into the seat back frame the same way.  I imagine the seat base frames are probably all the same in Mustangs from 87-93.  For the years where they did away with the adjustable knee bolster, I imagine they just achieved this by covering the seat base with a different seat base foam.  The seats that I rebuilt were 87-88 Thunderbird Turbo Coupe seats.  I tore them down to the bare frames and used TMI seat foam part number 43-73790.

https://www.cjponyparts.com/tmi-seat-foam-sport-svo-style-for-2003-2004-cobra-style-upholstery-1990-1991/p/SF37-V/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIkdzQ-aK25QIVjpOzCh35lgUfEAQYASABEgIOp_D_BwE#217=985&year=1990
74
User Rides / Re: New Addition
Interior is gutted other than the dash, working on cleaning everything and trying to get into all the nooks and crannies.  Actually, things are slowly going back together now ... "upgraded" with a few stock mods - added the XR7 steering wheel and digital clock.  Replaced the stock dash speakers.
75
Body/Appearance/Interior / Re: SN95 seats DON'T just "bolt to our tracks"?
I did some seat "upgrades" using TMI items as well.  I was able to take a stock set of Turbo Coupe seats and modify them.  First, I stripped them down to the bare frames, added upgraded "Cobra" style foam with more aggressive bolstering from TMI.  Then, I recovered them with a seat cover set from TMI that I was able to custom spec the color combo/material for ... the SVO Mustang used the same charcoal color, so it matched up nicely.  This allowed me to keep the adjustable side bolsters and knee bolster along with the lumbar.

Here's the link, but all of the photos have since disappeared:
https://www.foxtbirdcougarforums.com/index.php?topic=40410.0

Pics of the finished product ... you'll have to forgive the lighting.  This is where I ended, but there was a lot of experimentation along the way.  I did some hole drilling in a spare power seat track with some Corbeau seats, but just never got them to fit to my liking.  Looks like yours bolted up without too much issue,  Good job.