Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Collapsed seat pad

Yes it is not a tough job. The MMC webbing originally came from[b] Alpha Romeo. Yes, I used the "strimmer" (aka whipper snipper) method as a fix 25 years ago
and put that rudimentary idea up on gomog, Many have followed it, but I only used it temporarily. Many methods will do, as long as you can make the new strapping
as taut as needed to to be comfortable. To clarify, though the guilty seat must be removed from the car, the seat cover does not.

The AR webbing stuff was available, sporadically for a few years. I used it on two Morgans [i no need on my last for reasons below.[/i] The MMC webbing used used to back
the rear of the seats as well, but that part never split in my experience. That meant the original AR webbing delivered through the Morgan network was enough to cover two
seat bottoms. The AR crowd moved to another supplier, Recoro, https://shorturl.at/OwDNw However, I have NOT measured it against the Morgan variant. The reason
for my lack of knowledge is below

THE KEY TO KNOW is that the seats are only splitting for owners (like me in the beginning) who place their knees on the seat bottoms to hold their weight as they
lean into the car, very often to access the rear storage when they do not have tilting seats. Stop doing that and the seat webbing will last forever

gmg.

Lorne. My car is a 2012 model and as you can see from the photos there is no webbing as such. The support for the seat is a relatively light weight synthetic mesh. the edges of the mesh, for a distance of about 2.5 inches, are reinforced with a doubled over piece of some sort of reinforced material which sandwiches the mesh and it bonded to it. The hooks penetrate this sandwhich but there are no eyelets or other form of reinforcing for the holes.
In some cases the material is starting to tear around the holes-
As you can also see from the photos this sandwhich of material has split straight down the side of the mesh more or less above one of the seat tubes.It may be that in extreme bumps the meterial came into contact with the tube but there is nothing sharp there which could have initiated the tear.
Regarding kneeling on the seat I have no recollection of ever having done that. These seats are the reclining type and we always tilet them forward if we need access to the space behind the seats.

My current thinking is to order some 1" nylon luggage straps that have locking metal buckles I will then double the between the seat tubes. With a little luck I might be able to thread the strap around the tube without removing the leather cover but I have my doubts that it is possible.

I only just looked at the link that Lorne provided for the Recaro Seat Webbing. My seat padding support is indeed the same rubbishy item as sold on US Ebay.
Perhaps it is better called a spring mat than webbing.

A bit of a search found others for sale. This one from Pelican Parts.



I love the description from https://www.akr-performance.com/p/recaro-seat-webbing-363738

I am not sure that I want something that offers "offers the same quality and performance as the original part."

At least AKR Performance are a little closer to home in case I decide to replace the rubbishy spring mat with the same rubbish.

This is my 2016. Not the same but probably very similar.



2012:



2004/5:

The underneath seems identical Dave.

I found this video of a repair to a slightly different, but similar, seat base:



I don’t agree with the use of an impermeabile membrane as I believe the foam should be able to 'breath' and not retain moisture. None the less it is interesting.

Thank you Gambalunga,

However, though I have tried to archived all information on trads made until their demise,(including your image above) I do not publicly cover trads made after 2003/4,
being the end of the Rover Plus 8s. There are good reasons for this. I do host information for a Roadster group at their request.

The Recaro webbing, (as I noted used by Alpha Romeo and others), is a feature of many 1000s of trads for decades. I cannot confirm whether it is rubbish, I can only
say that it is what we those 1000s have to deal with. I can confirm that two of three Plus 8s had this webbing rip, either becoming mine after the earlier owners had.
done it or I did it myself. Of course, the driver's seat goes first followed by the passenger's seat later on. I changed all the seat webbing, a hassle but not complicated.
I tried using something solid on the first one as a temporary fix, but found it exceedingly painful. I chose not to plump up my posterior.

I was told by friends in the trade, that the Recoro webbing splits when owners/passengers support themselves by putting their knee into the middle of the seat. Do that
and the webbing splits. They must be right as my webbing, in two cars, has not split in the subsequent 22 years and many lovely miles.

For the rest, I found another source for the webbing in the UK..at less than half the rate of others. https://www.capitalseating.co.uk/recaro-seat-webbing As I have noted
many suppliers for collector cars have become predatory. However, some suppliers are coming up with sweet upgrades. The problem is finding them. We cannot rely
on dealers to all the research and sourcing for us. And it became a policy of the MMC to not-prioritize anything but current production for trads from 2004 on.
However I have hopes of late.

Here are alternatives, one of which I know you will like.

IDEA 1

https://www.ebay.com/itm/164535081056?chn=ps&mkevt=1&mkcid=28 (image below)

IDEA 2.

There is also seat webbing such as that used by BMW, and others. Pictured below.

I do have my doubts about the much cheaper Restall webbing being flogged by many.



Brilliant. In the cases I speak to above, one was a fixed seat and the UK car I bought/restored the seats tilted forward. Nonetheless, the both succumbed to the torn
webbing plague and for the same reason. My Help Inbox has scores of such cases over the years. Whatever, the webbing, as long as we refrain from placing 160lbs
on the seat with a knee..it is not a problem no matter what webbing. It is the same as so many other Morgan issues I have found.

L.

In the end I decided on a fix that did not involve the complication of dismantling the whole seat base. Due to the way the leather is fastened to the frame and stapled to some pieces of wood, which are riveted to the frame, I decided that that would be too specialised for me.

I purchased a pack of 8 25mm luggage straps that are 1 metre long from Amazon. They have metal buckles that grip the strap. I was able to get the straps under the wire on each side and under the original "spring mat" then back across the top to the buckles. In the end I only used 6.

Because of the seat structure the strap nearest the seat back was impossibile to get closer to the back on one side (left of the photo below) and I did not worry about trying to get an extra strap towards the front of the seat (right of the photo) because it is supported by the metal plate.



Having tightened up the straps I cut off the excess and tucked the tails back under the straps. The buckles are under the straps and under the seat so you do not feel them. I never try to stow anything under the seats so that is not a problem.





The result seems to be as comfortable as the original so it will probably stay like that for a while.

I sprayed a little silicon on the rails to try to improve the ease of moving the seat fore and aft but it did not help a lot. I was carefull not to overtighten the anchoring bolts but in the end I came to the conclusion that the left to right distance between the rear holes had been drilled inaccurately so that the tracks are not completely parallel. I measured it as best I could and the back seemed to be about 1mm narrower than the front. The seat slides easily when it is forward but tightens right up when it is towards the back. I do not think that the cause, in my case, is the nuts under the middle of the rails. In any case the next time I have the seat out I will change the guilty bolt to something better.

That looks similar to my solution;-)
It is simple an readjustable...

Thumbs up for new comfort....

Where can I acquire those clips that attach the webbing to the seat rails? I've broken a few...

Ron