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A key component of 240 seat repair is to glue up the cracks in the foam with 3M Super 77. And reinforce the foam with denim material from some old jeans. There are other issues to deal with such as broken lumbar supports (repair with parts from a junker seat) and broken grids (replace with new or substitute steel cable + turnbuckles).
This time I was under instructions from good wifey not to glue the foam. Soemthing about keeping the job smaller and not taking all weekend. And I have to admit, cleaning the glue off your hands afterwards isn't fun.
So I found a way. No glue, and it worked.
I stretched denim material across the (flat) forward part of the frame to serve as a support for the foam. This is where the rear of the foam normally is anyway; now there is a support for it there. I put the material across the flat part of the "C" channel that is the main frame. Material starts about at the upper edge of the lumbar support and goes about 8" up from there to where the tubes are welded to the "C" channel. I used one leg from the jeans. This gives a double layer; the leg was just long enough to cross the seat back and wrap around the frame peices. Not stretched very tight.
This is the only work I did to remedy the torn foam. I did not glue it, nor did I reinforce the foam with glued-on cloth. The seat also needed other work on the lumbar support and seat bottom grid which I did.
So now, leaning back against the seat presses the foam against the denim material, instead of the original design where the foam is really only held only at the shoulders by the tubular frame extensions. In the original setup the foam is stretched rearward by the body weight, and of course it tears over time. The result is quite comfortable. The foam is still torn in the usual places but it really doesn't matter with the support across the frame.
On another brick, I did a "standard" glue-the-foam repair in Oct. '04 and had to redo the job maybe 20K miles later because the foam had torm again. When I did, I also put a support behind the reglued foam and wrote it up here. I now have about 35K miles on the second rebuild and it's holding up well.
How to attach the material?
Zip ties should work OK; I used galvanized steel cable, one piece on each side of the frame. I'd recommend vinyl-sheathed cable. My cable ends untwisted and became difficult to use; sheathed would prevent that. I drilled a few 1/8" holes in the C channel and "sewed" the jeans material on using the holes. One punched hole is already there; you can use it. Fasten each cable once with one of those U-clamp fasteners.
Keep hole-drilling to a minimum. Use the smallest diameter that will pass your cable. Drill only on the flat parts. Don't drill in the welded areas; these have been known to separate under stress without any help from a drill.
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DAMHIK: Don't Ask Me How I Know - - - Sven: '89 245, IPD sways, electric rad. fan conversion, e-codes, 28+ mpg - auto tranny. 500 mi/week commute. '89 245 #2 (wifemobile). '90 244 (spare, runs).
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