S Type Seat Refurb Article Request

[Orange]

Please can somebody let me have a copy of the seat refurb article. I think it was in Feb 21  copy of Low Flying. Annoyingly I do not keep my copies.

Many thanks

[WobblyWeb]

 

 

These instructions/guide supplied by Oxted Trimming the seat makers. They do a refurb kit.

Jo Mitchell, Customer Service and Sales Manager, tel: 01883 712112
Jo Mitchell <jo@oxtedgroup.co.uk>
 

[Orange]

Brilliant, thank you.

Do you know how to get the leather cover off?

My seats don't actually need a refurb, one of the welds I think has failed, I want to check and if my fear is confirmed get it rewelded.

[WobblyWeb]

Yes. The leather skins have lips that simply tuck over the edges of the plastic seat-backs. I found mine were glued at the base of the back where this happens but just not glued elsewhere. Just get your fingers or a wide-blade chisel in there and have a go to separate them with a gentle but firm effort. I got the glue to give up where there was some and didn't use any on reassembly. Just like rolling up your jeans I found you could adjust tension on the leather skins on reassembly by rolling the edges of the skins over once before tucking around the plastic seat-back. Follow the instructions about the positioning of the cable ties on the seat back.

 

Both seat frames were cracked where the back tubes joins the base tubes. Once the frames were exposed I found that my seat frames had minor differences that I attributed to an apparent design modification at some point (I found reference in Blatchat archives on S-seats to a 'CDX' modification - I think that's a reference to a point in time also associated with that model of Caterham). Essentially if your seat frames don't have the small upright tube you see in photo 6 as a form of gusset tube triangulation reinforcement to the back/base junction - ask your welder to add them. With weld repairs make sure the weld is ground flush on the underside of the frame when it mates against the seat runners.

 

My headrests were retained by a device that was a plastic coated wire. They had distorted and dropped out. If you have those (they changed the detail later) I replaced with a short length of suitable diameter fuel hose located with nylon number-plate bolts screwed into each end. Gives the headrest tube a soft squeeze. I also bought plastic end caps for the headrest tubes to stop them squeaking on the bracket below. If that sounds obscure it will be clearer when you have the seats apart. I also found the hole locations to mount the frames to the runners were slightly different from seat to seat so they are essentially bespoke to their respective runners - if you swap them from over driver/passenger side I would have needed to do the same with the runners.

[Orange]

Many thanks for this, sounds like the leather unclips from the back and just lifts off the front.

A job for the winter!

[Mcalvert]

Orangs - let me have your email address and I'll happily also send you a soft copy of the article in question.  

[timb2117]

Just for your confidence I followed article replaced everything (and had to weld up 3 breaks in seat frame!) straightforward, Jo at Oxted is brilliant too.

[Mcalvert]

There was also an article in Lowflying that may help here:

Edited May 11 by Mcalvert