The other day my driver's seat back finally gave way. It had been loose for some time but it finally got to the point where it just layed over towards the middle of the truck and the whole bottom of the seat wobbled. Time to fix it.

I pulled the seat out after snapping the head of the left rear mount bolt off (removed stub with a pipe wrench).

The seat frame was broken in several places, at the weldments (The weakest point of a welded steel structure is at a weld). The folks that did the welding did minimum, in terms of welding, to save bucks I guess.

Here's the bottom side of the seat before disassembly. You can see the right rear side laying over.



I assembled the structure and pop riveted the broken structures back into position. Here's several views of the broken/riveted structures.











I was lucky that the guy down the street from me has a Mig welder and welded up the broken welds for me (sorry, no pics). I retaind the pop rivets in place. I gave the entire frame a coat of Rust Reformer and painted the mount feet with gloss black.

I had to fix the sagging seat foam with 1/2" thick foam rubber from Joe Ann Fabric (No pics)

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Here's the restored driver's seat ready to install.



The new welds will not last forever but should last for another 10 years or so. This is my DD XJ and have never done any off-roading with it. The frame structure broke simply from continuous use since 1999.

 

Great write-up, mine just broke a few weeks ago too, it sucked at first but ive gotten used to it. My friend who I work with was gonna just give me a seat from a 94 ZJ, will it work? I have no idea.

 

OP - you should see if one of the moderators can put this in the tech write-up section. Great job by the way! Ever since I bought my XJ 8 months ago, I noticed the seat frame on both the driver and passenger is getting some rust. Might use this to my advantage and repaint them!

It should be an easy swap out, if not just a little modification! I see many XJ owners doing this, even with the rear! Good luck.

V/r,
awsgrayrd.

 

Since I came across this, mine will break any day now, guaranteed.

 

Nice job CCKen. The 1/2 inch foam, did you use it right over the existing foam and then just put the covers back on? Seat looks brand new. Nice work. I did mine real quick with nuts and bolts but mine was only broken under the seat back. You seem to have a little more work involved. Really nice job.

 

Do you have any pictures of what you did with the seat foam?

 

He said he had no pics of that.

 

Mine started to wobble on my drive in to work!

 

Yes, I put a layer on the cushion and I had to cut out small sections to fit in the individual sections of the seat cover were they sagged (on the edge were you get in and out of the Jeep). The original foam in these sections were completely deteriorated so I scraped it off and glued in the new foam. I had to radius the edges of the foam, both on the cover and on top of the cushion so the blended in properly. Takes several practice runs to get it right before gluing it in place (I used masking tape to hold the foam temporarily in place while trying out the fit).

Every bone yard I've been to has had the driver's seat already removed. It appears that there are many broken seats out there that were replaced by bone yard seats. Whoever got those seats probably got broken seats as replacements.

Yes, my seat frame was pretty far along, as far as damage goes, before I decided to fix it. I was originally too lazy, or too old, to do anything about it up to that point.

 

Haha, yeah it took me a while to pull my seat and do mine too. I had too much other work to be done on it so the seat got put off. At the time I didn't have time to look into refoaming the seat. Any idea on the density of the 1/2 inch foam you used? I'm 250 and I'm thinking 1/2 inch foam won't last or I won't feel it much for being my size. Or was it more to plump the seat back up to look like new again? There are no direct replacement foam inserts for these and it seems like a lot to even attempt. I thought about just doing ZJ replacements but I'd be putting the same old condition seats in that I have now. I agree with you on the drivers seats already removed from the JY's. Kinda doesn't make sense to get one from there since they all eventually break anyway. It's just a matter of time before that would break if it wasn't already.

Like I said, that seat now looks brand new. I'd love to pay you to come do mine. haha! Oh, and perfect color XJ too.

 

I have no idea what the density of the foam used was. It was green stuff. It didn't seem very dense. It did plump up the cushion cover pretty good and feels different when I sit on it, almost like when it was new. I'll probably end up replacing it in the future when IT too deteriorates. I'm too cheap to take it to an upolstery shop to have it done so it's trial and error on my part.

There is a store in the metro Detroit area that sells automotive interior materials but, as usual, I'm too lazy to drive 20 miles to get a few bits of foam....thus, Jo Ann Fabrics.

 

Here's a link to a Go Jeep article about repadding the driver's seat.

http://www.go.jeep-xj.info/HowtoSeatRepadding.htm

The blue 8 MM sleeping mat foam he used is about 5/16" thick. I think that would work better than the 1/2" foam I used.

 

Great info and great link CCKen. Thank you.