A Quick De-rust and Small Respray

Over the past couple of years, the Vogue has been developing a small crease of rust where two body seams meet along the front behind the bumper bar. I have been trying to match the paint for the car but the original colour codes are unreadable due to paint drips. I have also had it for over 4 years now.

So given that the rust was becoming visible I set aside some time over the weekend to burr it out using my dremel and a miniature wire wheel, rust convert it (I actually did that stuff during the week at night), prime it, seam seal it, prime it again, then two base coats and two clear coats.

Where did I get the paint? I used supercheap auto's colour cards to get the closest match among 72,000 colours and they mixed me up an aerosol can.

I masked up 5-10mm either side of the seam as I didn't want to spray the whole lower front and the result is good - not perfect but good. You have to be looking for it.

The Vogue, missing bumper and grill, ready for clear coat. I hate overspray.

All in time to drive it to work today.

Driver's seat fixed

One Sunday I finally got around to changing out the second faulty seat diaphragm - this time for webbing. I was amazed to see from this blog that it has been over 2 months since it tore. The seat base has had some of my trusty battery pack packaging foam supporting it.

The torn diaphragm. The steel inserts have torn out in four places at the rear of the seat (circled).

First I removed the torn diaphragm. I also removed the two aluminium pieces at the sides so I could add more holes.

I decided I would need five straps running side to side to support the foam so, fortunately, it only required three more to be drilled.

It was a bit cold in the garage so Laurel agreed that the workmate and vice could be brushed down and set up in the lounge room - together with a folding table.

First strap on. I used 0.86 stretch on the seat backs so we went with 0.8 on the base.

That is - measure the hole to hole dimension then subtract the size of the hooks and multiply the result by 0.8. Cut the webbing to that dimension.

Three front-to-back straps done.
 
I had to temporarily un-thread the left hand front-to-back so allow me to get enough grip to stretch the side-to-side ones.

All done. The three middle side-to-side hooks are 30mm and are from the first seat diaphragm I bought - there is no reason I used them other than convenience. The Vogue originals and the ones I made were 20mm - you can see the difference.
The strange interleaving is because to front and rearmost straps would have been damaged by the webbing clamps if I had run the side-to-side trap across the bottom.

It was a very comfy ride to work Monday and Tuesday.

Cost of the Premium Webbing plus clamps for the base was $26 - with postage from (www.diyupholsterysupplies.com.au/home/) This includes enough for the passenger seat when it inevitably fails. The webbing is also heaps easier to put on and really easy to "get it right". My advise - don't bother with the diaphragm approach at all. 

If this was being done while the seat was completely disassembled then you also would not need the aluminium pieces - just drill extra holes in the actual seat frame. Another time saver over what I did originally. The 0.8 stretch was about right for the base - I wouldn't change it.

I will post how it holds up over time but I really don't expect any problems at all as two or three straps can hold my 80kg weight easily - and there are eight.