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The drivers seat needs to be rebuilt as I am currently looking straight at the dashboard. The replacement foam offered in the ipd catalog looks very expensive. Also I am considering adding a seat heater during the rebuild process (we are in Mid Michigan). Has anyone else done this?
Don't bother with IPD's foam. Just get a doner seat (preferably a passenger seat) from a local pick-n-pull. The foam is exactly the same from one side to the other, so you could even just swap your driver's side with the passenger's side in a pinch. You can probably also scavange the heater off of the same donor seat. Every brick I've seen has the seat heaters. If your seat bottom is sagging, it's possible that some of the springs have come loose and that your foam might be fine. You'll have to remove it from the car - 4 13mm nuts, I think - to see what the problem is. If you're handy you won't need any instructions to fix the seats. Just take them out of the car and take them apart, keeping track of where all the little wires and clips go. You can't really screw things up. If you take the upholstery off, it will help to have some hog rings and a hog ring pliers handy to put the upholstery back together. Or you can use plastic zip ties. If you do take the upholstery off, the hot tip is that the cloth seat upholstery is machine washable. It makes a huge difference.
I suspect its the switch in the column--any ideas or suggestions?
Again, just get a switch out of the junkyard. I see these all the time on cars, and taking one out of a car in the junkyard gives you practice for how to replace it on your car without damaging anything.
Finally, before Spring I am looking at suspension upgrades to smooth out the ride and stabilize the handling on these rough Michigan roads. Any suggestions on shock/strut upgrades would be appreciated
Most upgrades that will improve the handling of the brick will unfortunately make the ride harsher for bumpy roads. Especially avoid urethane control arm bushings if you want a smooth ride. If you keep your eye out in the junkyard, you might find a turbo 240. These have thicker sway bars in front and in the rear. Grab these and swap them with yours. That alone will really improve the handling. If you want to invest a few hundred, you can buy the IPD aftermarket sway bars, which are even better than the turbo sway bars. Also get some good shocks like Bilstein touring. These two upgrades - thicker sway bars and better shocks - will give you a much better ride without adding too much harshness.
Congratulations on the good buy. You might want to do a search for "zero mile list" or "zero mile maintenance" for suggestions on what maintenance items to take care of.
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