Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Classic/Traditional Cars - taking the seats out

I removed the seats from my car earlier this month to have them reupholstered and, being the second time I'd had them out, I was aware of the potential pitfall. Dave describes above how the wooden battens are not uniform, do not underestimate the importance of this statement on an older car!

On my 1980 4-seater the battens are larger and there is no visible taper but they are all subtly different, in particular in relation to the fixing holes. I suspect during the build they aligned the seats on the battens and then drilled down through the seat runner, batten and floor to fix them. In any case, the important point is that the holes are not all in the same places. When you reassemble you must get the seats on their original battens in the original orientation.

If you have set the battens aside thinking they are just 4 blocks of wood you will then spend a fun afternoon working out exactly which one goes where and which way round. You may even have fixed one seat back in position before realising that there's no way the holes in the other one will align.

Paranoid from my previous attempt, this time I carefully stored each batten the correct way round on the floor, complete with a new bolt, and just for good measure I labelled them!