Fordor Sedan front seat adjustment question....

[Marshall V. Daut]

I am still fighting the restoration of a Town Sedan and am experiencing difficulties with the seat adjustment mechanism. The car's front seat carriage had suffered numerous breaks and farmer repairs with angle brackets, sheet metal screws, cheap wood inserts and tin can splices. You get the picture. I have repaired all of those and made the carriage much firmer by welding the panels back together and re-inforcing them from inside.
But - Something is just not right with the seat adjustment pieces. I finally got the seat to slide in the tracks (which were bent), but after putting everything back together, the seat will not budge when the adjusting knob is turned. The adjusting screw shaft works just fine when not mounted, but when it's screwed into the wood (as it was when the carriage came to me and can be seen in the photo), the seat binds and seems to be pulling against itself, spitting the back piece of wood where the rear bracket is mounted. For the life of me, I cannot see how the seat can be adjusted with the parts you see in the accompanying photo. Is something missing, such as wood pieces, or are the parts not installed properly? This is my first foray into front seat carriage repair and this poor seat carriage had had a VERY rough life on the farm, judging by the sloppy repairs. Ever tried to bring a corpse back to life? Welcome to my world!
Assuming someone here is restoring a Fordor/Town Sedan and the front seat carriage is not installed yet, can someone please post photos of the carriage's underside or send scans to my direct email address (2005corvette@mchsi.com) so that I can compare against my carriage's adjusting mechanism to see what's rotten in Denmark with it?
Thanks in advance.
Marshall

 

[nkaminar]

The nut has to be mounted to the body underneath the seat. Your seat is fighting itself. The rails mount to the body and the seat slide in them. The screw is captured at the front and pulls and pushed on the nut that is attached to the body.

 

[Marshall V. Daut]

Yes, the base sliding brackets are temporarily fitted to the body floor wood to line up the holes in the brackets with the wooden sill holes. It's the worm gear action that has me puzzled, however. And I agree: the way things are now, the seat is fighting itself - and the wood is losing! Something is backwards, upside down or missing to be creating this situation.
So, is that four-hole bracket with the captured nut at the rear (where the worm shaft turns) upside down in my photo? Note how it is screwed to the wooden seat framework. As it is now, it is screwed to the bottom of the seat frame. As the screw knob is turned, that stationary bracket pulls its mounting board forward or back, causing it to split. I assume the previous owner put this bracket on upside-down? It would make sense that the bracket with captured nut would be the point of screwing action and be mounted to the body wood. Studying what is there and how it is configured, I just couldn't see any way possible for the seat to be moved via the worm shaft. That's as far as my thinking went.
Unfortunately, new wood floor sill and cross pieces were installed by the previous owner and no holes are present to guide me if this bracket is to be screwed to the wooden center cross piece (behind the front seat). Am I visualizing this correctly? My carriage adjusting configuration is installed incorrectly at the back? 'Sorry - I have absolutely nothing to go by in determining what is what and what is missing or mis-installed. VERY frustrating!
Marshall

 

[J Franklin]

Can you post a photo looking at it from the top side?

 

[Marshall V. Daut]

I'll take photos tomorrow and post them. Too dark here now for that.
M.

 

[1928 Sport Coupe]

Marshal this is my seat in a 1930 Town Sedan. Kind of hard to see but the female threaded part screws to the floor.
The last picture is yours with the part outlined that bolts to the floor. It needs to be turned upside down from the way you have it. 4 wood screws about 1-1/4" are required. I had mine apart to clean and free it up, but I apparently did not take pictures of the seat out of the car.
Sorry I don't have better pictures. I hope this helps.

 

[Marshall V. Daut]

Besides the caged nut assembly being mounted upside down on my assembly (Is there a better name for that caged nut part?), I discovered in photos kindly sent by "JayJay" that the previous owner installed the base sliding rails backwards where the wooden cross connecting piece is at the back of the track and the thin metal strip is at the front. According to his photos of an original seat carriage, they should be the other way around: wooden piece in front, metal strip in back. I assume that metal strip is nailed to the wooden floor sill cross piece? I see many small holes in it that appear to be for nailing purposes. The fact that the previous owner screwed the caged nut assembly upside down to the seat's wooden frame doesn't affect the worm screw adjusting action, but is just one more thing he screwed up that I have to correct.
I could still use a clear shot of where that caged nut assembly is secured to the body! In "1928 Sport Coupe's" photos above, it does appear to be screwed to the wooden floor sill cross piece. But in my car, there are no holes in the new wood floor sills to guide me. By the way, this seat carriage came out of a VERY rough 1930 Briggs Standard Fordor Sedan and I'm trying to adapt it to my 1929 Murray Town Sedan. All parts and construction seem to be the same, however.
Marshall

 

[JayJay]

Besides the caged nut assembly being mounted upside down on my assembly (Is there a better name for that caged nut part?), I discovered in photos kindly sent by "JayJay" that the previous owner installed the base sliding rails backwards where the wooden cross connecting piece is at the back of the track and the thin metal strip is at the front. According to his photos of an original seat carriage, they should be the other way around: wooden piece in front, metal strip in back. I assume that metal strip is nailed to the wooden floor sill cross piece? I see many small holes in it that appear to be for nailing purposes. The fact that the previous owner screwed the caged nut assembly upside down to the seat's wooden frame doesn't affect the worm screw adjusting action, but is just one more thing he screwed up that I have to correct.
I could still use a clear shot of where that caged nut assembly is secured to the body! In "1928 Sport Coupe's" photos above, it does appear to be screwed to the wooden floor sill cross piece. But in my car, there are no holes in the new wood floor sills to guide me. By the way, this seat carriage came out of a VERY rough 1930 Briggs Standard Fordor Sedan and I'm trying to adapt it to my 1929 Murray Town Sedan. All parts and construction seem to be the same, however.
Marshall

Marshall - IIRC, the seat frame is screwed to the body bottom rails with three screws (not nails, maybe four?) each side, and nothing front or rear to the cross members. And yes, wood to the front. I don’t seem to have a picture of that, sorry.

 

[1928 Sport Coupe]

Marshall:
I found a couple more pictures that may help. These kind of show how the adjustment bracket is positioned. I had mine out figure out how to move the seat back.

 

[Marshall V. Daut]

O.K. Some progress to report. Thanks to good input so far, I think we are zeroing in the problem(s) with this POS seat frame. Because the problem deals with the two major components of the seat, namely the base with tracks and the seat carriage with adjuster, I will make two postings showing what I have found and what I have done to correct the problems encountered.
Firstly, it must be clearly understood that whoever "fixed" this seat back on the farm 40-50 years ago and put it back together was a low grade moron, who probably reproduced multiple times and voted. That's scary enough in itself for the rest of us; but add to that what he did to this poor innocent seat carriage that has caused me untold sleepless nights and new scars! If there was a 50-50 chance of re-installing something correctly oriented, he got it backwards or upside down 95% of the time. O.K. Enough grousing...

This posting deals with what I am calling the seat base with stationary tracks. As can be seen in the lone photo in my first post, the base assembly was installed backwards after Farmer John had made his "quality repairs". The wooden cross piece is supposed to be in the front of the track base and the metal nailing strip should be across the back. I switched it around and temporarily set it in place on top of the wooden floor sills. Now it makes sense and lines up reasonably well. I have temporarily placed the worm screw assembly on the wooden cross piece, approximately where "1928 Sport Coupe" shows it to be in his photos. It had been screwed to the underside of the seat frame, meaning 180 degrees opposite from how it should be. When the worm screw was turned, it was pulling the backmost wood base piece with it. How did Mr. Einstein think that could possibly work? I'll drill holes in the new floor cross piece for mounting this piece.
Does the base with tracks look correct now?

 

[Marshall V. Daut]

This is Part Two: the seat frame with adjuster worm screw. As can be seen in the photos, there is still a problem with the caged nut assembly in back. Note in the second photo how the worm screw rises as it moves towards the back of the seat carriage. This severe upward sloping angle (with the carriage upside down in the photos) will cause mounting problems with the caged nut bracket. It will keep the tracks from mating because that caged nut bracket is too high. I suspect that Mr. Einstein added the piece of wood under the rear bracket that contains the worm screw slot. It doesn't look factory. Shouldn't this metal bracket be screwed or bolted directly to the rear wood piece instead of being shimmed up almost an inch? Please study the photos and help me determine that I need to remove that spacer wood block and secure the bracket to the wooden cross piece in the seat carriage. That has got to be a major reason why the seat wouldn't budge.
One final question: When putting the carriage assembly back on the tracks while in the body, is the rear caged nut bracket already on the worm screw and is then screwed to the wooden cross piece after the seat carriage is on the tracks? Otherwise if it's first screwed to the cross piece, I don't see how you can get the seat in place AND line up the worm gear through its supports and final exit hole up front.
Marshall

 

[1930artdeco]

I am following this one. Can't help but I do have a question. Do you have a Murry bodied car? My Briggs TS doesn't have a seat adjuster like that, were they different?

Mike

 

[1928 Sport Coupe]

Marshall:
The spacer block does not belong on the seat. Look at my first set of pictures. You will notice there is no spacer, the metal retainer is bolted directly to the seat frame. The metal retainer fits into a grove on the threaded shaft to move the seat. I do not have the car in my garage at the moment or I would go out and take more pictures. I may be able to go to my brothers garage this weekend. If you let me know what pictures you want I will try to get them.

This is a 1930 Briggs Town Sedan. everything I have found and seen says the front seat and track are for a Murray. But there are no extra holes, brackets or anything that makes me think it was ever changed. I assume this is the seat the car came with originally. I was told the car is an original 35K mile car when I bought it.

 

[Marshall V. Daut]

Do you have a Murry bodied car? My Briggs TS doesn't have a seat adjuster like that, were they different?
From Post #7:
"By the way, this seat carriage came out of a VERY rough 1930 Briggs Standard Fordor Sedan and I'm trying to adapt it to my 1929 Murray Town Sedan. All parts and construction seem to be the same, however."

My 1930 Briggs seat adjusting configuration matches that of "1928 Sport Coupe's" Briggs parts. I can't speak of whether it's the same as the Murray seat configuration because I don't have a Murray adjusting seat to compare. Although my 1929 Town Sedan is a Murray body, the holes in the wooden sills line up with the Briggs seat carriage mounting brackets I am attempting to install. This carriage came from a different car than my Murray sedan, but the parts fit together as if they had come with the car. How would the Murray and Briggs designs differ, I wonder? Perhaps because this Briggs seat carriage is from a 1930 Standard Fordor it differs from everyone else's 1930 Briggs Town Sedans? Did the Town Sedans get a better design than the Standard Fordor's?
I think the base mounting parts are straightened out now. I will remove that extra wooden block under the metal retainer plate in the rear as "1928 Sport Coupe" advises. I was pretty sure that block was incorrect. That should lower the worm screw and change its angle so that the caged nut bracket at the vary back will now fit on the floor's cross piece and be operable. The only remaining mystery is whether I should install the carriage assembly in complete form with the base tracks attached and then bolt them to the floor sills on the sides, or mount the base tracks to the sills first and then slide on the carriage. It's how the worm screw shaft goes in place that concerns me with the carriage using the second method. Its nose has to pass through the front-most bracket, which will be difficult to do when also attempting to get the sliding brackets to mesh with the stationary ones at the same time. It's a HEAVY seat carriage, so I only want to do this ONCE and not be taking it in and out of the body multiple times. Any advice from those who have removed and then re-installed the front seat carriage which of the two ways is better?
Marshall