M38 Back Seat Upper Cushion Size

[Naugha]

I wanted to use old takeoff cushions for my reproduction M38 rear seat frame and cover them (& front seats) with the six piece canvas set made by WeeBee Webbing. The new top cover for the rear seat turned out to be much smaller than the canvas that came off the old cushion. I thought the cushion was wrong (too big) or the cover was too small .... or maybe my reproduction frame was off.... but did not consider that the installer (me) was to blame. After all, the old top canvas fit perfectly (because it had stretched over the years) and the new lower rear seat canvas went on with very little tugging.


As explained by ‘dpizz’ the new top canvas requires a little TLC.
Here is what I ended up doing.

*Stabilized the old cushion fiber & springs with anti-rust paint and a spray on latex coating..... final coat of black spray paint.... reduced fiber shedding.
*Fitted old cushion & canvas to seat frame and used existing holes in canvas to mark drill spots on the reproduction frame.
*Drilled holes. 5 top/ 5 bottom.
*Left new canvas in full Florida sun for one hour (temp in the 90’s)
*Removed old canvas from cushion. Shoved cushion into new canvas.
*Use pics above or NOS seat pics as a guide to final appearance.
*Pull up on sides of new canvas like putting on sock.
*Pull up on sides of canvas like putting on a tight boot.
*Pull,Pull,Tug,Tug / Squeeze the cushion / Pul,Pull,Tug,Tug
* Ask for forgiveness of any blasphemes.
*You may want to remove staples holding front cushion material and do some tucking under the spring frame... maybe some cloth between the spring frame and canvas for protection of canvas... maybe not.
*The canvas will fit, well, mine eventually did.
*Put the cushion with the new covering back in the sun for an hour.
*Repeat pulling/tugging until you have enough canvas on the top & bottom edges to attach to the frame holes. An awl can help here to make holes in the canvas in the double layer edge, insert awl into frame hole and pry the canvas to the hole.... start with center hole ... Add screws and retainer rings.
* I did the entire top first then switched to the bottom center hole.
*Again, use pics/measurements of the NOS seats to get it perfect.
*The WeeBee canvas set looks & smells great !!!

I probably forgot something.
Look back over the thread pics to help fill in any missing steps.
More info can be found here....