Foam for passengers seat bottom?

[yeager1]

I am in the process of replacing the cover on my passengers seat bottom, and I was planning on recovering the springs with new padding and recovering with canvas, but today the thought occurred to me, should I just ditch the springs all together and just use modern foam? The springs work, by they are old tech, and foams have come a long way in the past 25 years.
Has anyone tried this (or something similar) and how well did it work?

 

[63sierra10]

Mine had the springs and little plastic string stuff for padding and I used the springs with a foam over the top when I recovered them. I am very happy with it and they are so much more comfortable than they ever were.

 

[tm america]

foam may pad your bottom some but it wont act as suspension like the springs will. i would go with foam over the springs

 

[Gastrap]

I replaced my springs with "LUX-HQ" foam from thefoamfactory.com, cost about $35 each for bottom & back both wrapped in Dacron. Make sure you measure well so you get a good firm fit.

My wife's a pretty harsh seat critic and she approves the new seat wrapped in JATONKA canvas.

 

[WillWagner]

I did mine with the springs and dense foam made for car seats from the local upholstery shop.

 

[tonidial]

kept the springs...

I also kept the springs, ditched the dryrotten pad over them. I couldn't get fancy seatfoam at the local craft store: used 1/2 inch thick pad (two layers).

I did fix the metal binders as needed on the springs.

Covered the seat with olive drab duck surplus - had sis in-law use the old cover for a template to sew a new cover and added necessary grommits.

now I need to do the seat back and drivers seat.


If you do go spring-less let us know how it works out.

 

[M215]

I have had success using military sleeping mat foam as a replacement. Glue several layers together to get the correct thickness than install over the springs.
Karl

 

[yeager1]

I was thinking if I keep the springs to do 1" of memory foam over the top of them.

 

[srodocker]

i just bought high density foam for mine.

 

[63sierra10]

I was thinking if I keep the springs to do 1" of memory foam over the top of them.

The bad part of memory foam is that it is so expensive.

 

[yeager1]

A 1" piece at 18"-36" is $70, so yeah it's not cheap.

 

[AN/ARC186]

While I was at the fabric store picking up new seat cover material I meant to get some memory foam.......but I forgot.............

 

[yeager1]

Update: I did the memory foam-
1" medium density, with 1/8" dense felt over the factory springs and it is really, really comfortable. Much better then the drivers spring seat and better then most new car seats in general. Absolutely worth the money! If you shop around at upholstery shop you could find it cheaper then I did, but for $70 bucks I transformed the truck into something that people actually like riding in and are fine spending long periods of time in.

Other then the $40 muffler, this is the best money I have spent on this truck, hands down.

 

[emr]

MUFFLER ......................sorry just kidding.

 

[davidkroberts]

there is a big write up on this at the M715Zone forum. sign up if your not a member already and do a search. its kinda a big thing over on that side of the house.

Some cush for your tush. Modifying a MV seat for comfort - M715 Zone

some pics from the thread .... this is directly from the forum:

MODS: im not sure if this violates some policy or not. if it does sorry feel free to remove it

 

[CajunM35A2]

Military sleeping mat foam

I have had success using military sleeping mat foam as a replacement. Glue several layers together to get the correct thickness than install over the springs.
Karl

I am redoing all of the cushions in my M35A2 restoration and plan to use layered USGI sleeping mat foam. I will cut the layers roughly to size, then use spray adhesive to glue the plies together. I will then put a board on top of them and then add some books or bricks on top of that and let it set overnight. I will then cut the blocks of layered foam to final shape with a serrated knife.

WE USED THESE USGI FOAM MATS AT OUR CHURCH -- -

I am Roman Catholic and we needed to install kneeler pads at the altar rail of our church. We used a 1 x 10 plank and spray-glued two layers of foam on top of the boards. We then used another plank to weigh the whole thing down with weight atop the top board, and let it set overnight. The next day we removed the weights we trimmed the excess from around the plank. We then covered the foam and base plank with furniture uphostery material. We did that about 8 years ago and they still look like new. The foam works well. Just those two layers and the kneelers are actually comfortable.

At this time I plan to remove the springs from the M35A2 passenger bottom seat and go with this military sleeping mat foam in layers.