Fold-Down Rear Seat Swap

Stanley

Stanley

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1997 Thunderbird 4.6L V8
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If I wanted to add rear fold-down seats from a Super Coupe (or Cougar, I suppose) to my '97, do I need to change the LX rear bench out as well? I'm wondering if the necessary folding component is only the upper portion with back support, and your bottoms can stay as they are. All the sales for Super Coupe folding seats that I see only show the top half of the seats.

I'm looking to reupholster the fold-down part to match, if it's possible, so I don't want the entire seat assembly if I don't need it.

If you can mix and match the two seat parts, if anyone has any photos of interiors with LX benches mixed with fold-down uppers I'd appreciate seeing them. I'm curious to see how the lines blend together: whether it looks natural or not. The threads over at TCCOA that I found all have dead images.

EDIT: Turns out you only need the top portion, but the folding top part has horizontal stitching and the LX has vertical, so you might want both from a donor car just so they match up better visually.
 
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This is what my rear seat looked like with an '89 XR7 cloth fold down. It fits fine but the seat belts fit through gaps in the seat bottom on the later MN12s, whereas through the gap between the back and bottom on the earlier models. If you were to use the accompanying '89 seat bottom, you would need to also transplant the matching seat belt brackets (I've also heard that reversing the original brackets allows you to get just enough slack in the belts to fit them through the seat gap).

IMG_3044.JPG

When reupholstered, I just had to be extra clear that I needed a seat bottom for a 97, and the seat back was an 89 for that reason.
IMG_1736.JPG
 
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Damn. That is awesome. How do I say "jealous" in a nice way? Was it hard finding a 89 rear seat? Are there other cars the pull down back seat can come from?
 
Any 89-90 XR7 or 89-95 SC can be equipped with fold-down rears (but not all of them). For a cloth version, the XR7s are the only route - all SCs came in leather.

I lucked out; I found that locally about 15 years ago. I imagine you'd have a hard time finding one nowadays, but you never know. :)
 
Yeah, I'm aware of the brace issue. I was just wondering if you need anything from the seat bottoms, or if it's entirely an upper-seat operation.

I also see mention of needing a connecting carpet piece, but that doesn't seem to come up much at all so I wonder how necessary it is.
 
The L braces I picked up had carpet covering, is that what you're referring to?

Joe
 
Stanley said:
Yeah, I'm aware of the brace issue. I was just wondering if you need anything from the seat bottoms, or if it's entirely an upper-seat operation.

I also see mention of needing a connecting carpet piece, but that doesn't seem to come up much at all so I wonder how necessary it is.
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The filler carpet's velcro'd onto the seatback unless the seller's a dickweed and trying to sell it separate
 
Rodeo Joe said:
The L braces I picked up had carpet covering, is that what you're referring to?
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I'm not sure. It's allegedly this piece:

concar.jpg

XR7-4.6 said:
The filler carpet's velcro'd onto the seatback unless the seller's a dickweed and trying to sell it separate
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heh, that probably explains why I don't see it mentioned often.
 
It's not needed, but it does cover up the gap along the bottom between the back of the seat back (if that makes sense) and the trunk carpet to give a cleaner look when the seats are down.
 
One of the cool features of my 83 firebird was the fold down seats. It had less room than the cougar. It would have been fun with a v8.
 
Just got back from the upholsterer with my new seats. I wanted fold-down seats in my '97, but there were three issues (four actually, in that I didn't realise until yesterday that the braces for the fold-downs need a fourth bolting spot that is missing in the 96-97 cars, but I worked around that).

One is that I have a Willow Green cloth interior, and that colour wasn't offered in the years that fold-down seats were available. I wanted the seats to match my interior, rather than changing it all out.

Two is that the LX interior uses vertical lines for stitching. But, if you take a close look at the images theterminator93 posted above, you can see that the fold-down seats use horizontal stitching. Such a pattern mismatch would be really annoying.

Three is that there is apparently one upholstery place that everyone uses for old interior material, and once they're out of something, that's it. And apparently they were down to just under three yards of Willow Green cloth, not enough to do an entire seat back. And that's only the plain stuff, mind you: the featureless colour. That didn't include the paisley-like pattern inserts, which were completely gone. So there wasn't enough cloth of the kind I needed in existence.

Fortunately, the place I went to was willing to get creative. What they did was strip the inserts and any needed other fabric from my stock LX seats, which were in great shape, and graft them along with their fresh Willow Green cloth over my donor fold-down to make me a fold-down top in my colour. And they were able to do this all with a vertical stitching pattern that matches the stock bottom and the rest of the car.

I'm really happy with how it turned out. They might be the only Willow Green fold-downs in existence.

20240926_125810.jpg
 
Very cool and fun to see it with the factory patterns!
 
KevinVarnes said:
That is very cool. Nice work. I am assuming you are referring to SMS on the material?
Click to expand...

As in, the company that everyone goes through to get old material? I can't recall the name. The upholsterer had binders full of cloth swatches from them though.
 
They are one of if not the only company I am aware of that has NOS automotive upholstery material in stock. The problem is they are aware of it and their prices reflect that as well, but if you need it you need it. Regardless, it looks like the upholstery shop you took it to did a very nice job. Hard to find places that will do work like that anymore.
 
I paid just over 300 Canadian for those yards of fabric, so yeah, sounds about right.

As for the upholsterer, apparently the guy they got to do the work is the one they use for all old-car jobs. His brother opened the shop in 1970, so I imagine he's been around doing this sort of thing for a very long time.
 
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