Seat webbing

Hi all. I'm in the middle of recovering seats for my newly purchased 71 MGB. I bought Moss seat kits, including covers, foam and webbing. The old collapsed seats had the diaphragm rather than the webbing, but I didn't think much of it since the upholstery clearly wasn't original and I (apparently wrongly) assumed the frames must accept either one.

Anyway, after battling my way through one seatback and turning to the seat bottom, I discover I have four horizontal "webs" but only two sets of holes in the frame. (Sure wish I'd checked earlier...) I assume this means that the frames are different depending on webbing or diaphragm, and I must have non-original older or replacement frames. So: can I make this work just by drilling some new holes to accomodate the extra webbing? Can anyone tell me roughly how far apart the holes are spaced on a frame that accepts the webbing?

Hope this all makes sense..Thanks ahead of time. I've already learned from reading this forum that I should have used brush on contact cement to avoid puckering etc... Guess I'll try that with the second seat!

I would just put the holes in where the webbing needs them to be. One caveat - the holes aren't just 'drilled', I believe they are 'punched' so that the metal bends down and forms a lip inside the hole - giving some extra strength to the edge of the hole. But that is with my early seats that use the rubber diaphragm.

See me blog below my signature, I just put in a write-up on how I did my seats.

Dan D

There are four left-to-right rubbers and five sets of holes. I put my first three rubbers starting from the front and the fourth on the back set of holes. I am not sure if that is correct or not but the seat feels fine. Jack

Either way, but I think the solid rubber seat diaphragm is going to hold up better, stretch less and be more satisfactory. That's just my gut feeling since I haven't done it both ways.

Can you return the webbing and get the solid rubber diaphraghm, instead? I've also heard of people putting in both a solid diaphragm and a few pieces of rubber webbing just to firm it up, though to me that seems unusually painful to do. :)

best MGB seat I ever had I rewebbed with lawn chair webbing (green and white!).

that was 30+ years ago.

I used rubber straps - the ones with the hooks on the ends.

You might want to consider gluing a layer of canvas to the bottom of your seat foam to keep the straps from tearing into the rubber over time. If you look at many seats and chairs which use strapping, you will usually see that they also distribute the stress across the cushioning material via burlap or canvas or heavy muslin. Just makes the seat foams last longer.

Thanks all for the great tips. I did indeed put some burlap between the straps and padding, which makes a lot of sense.

My final solution to the too-few-holes problem wasn't very fancy but I actually think it worked--I used heavy-duty plastic locking ties, the flex-cuff type thing, in place of hooks for the two orphan straps. Worked pretty darn well actually, though of course time will tell. I sensed a tad more give in the plastic-tied straps, but given how incredibly firm and high-up the new seats are, I'm not sure I mind.

Obviously there's some risk that they'll break down the line, but I decided to take a gamble.

I went this course because I really didn't want to wait to order correct diaphragms etc., and I quickly determined I didn't have the proper tools to try drilling into tubular steel.

Plus I needed to get the seats back in so I can get the car inspected before the temp tags expire--and so I could get back in and drive!