Roadster Seats in a FHC

Wow David, good stuff, as usual. I just checked and my seats have a 10 degree rake. It is has become a long thread but I will reiterate that my car came in boxes. Evidence is that these are not the seats the car was born with, mostly based on the upholstery color. My tub does have the dished out area behind the seats and the floor has captive nuts commensurate with the long runners. Regarding long runners, I am guessing. Does anyone have an actual length dimension?

So now you’ve got me turning the question on it’s head. Would it be “wrong” for me to buy and install the wide FHC seats in this car, built on Jan. 2nd, 1963? Because that is the way I am headed as of right now.

Fitting FHC seats would be the easiest option as you will not have to press your case with concours judges! The car will be ‘correct’ as far as anyone knows. Your early seats will have a high value as well as the repro’s may not fit in early cars without dished bulkheads due to the rake angle…

I believe the long runners had mounting studs 10 1/4" apart whilst the earlier runners had studs 9" apart. The Spares Bulletin says the long runners increased travel by 1 1/2" so they are probably that much longer than their predecessors.

Also the later versions of the runners, made by A. W. Chapman under the ‘Leveroll’ brand, had different markings:

Early style:

Later style:
kL8lZWK

I do not know if the change in markings can be tied to a particular date though.

David

Harvey,

The seat, overall, is complex. But what I suggested was the only part that needs modification is the shape of the seat back, towards the top. I believe it would be quite easy to cut off the “bead” around the edge, weld on a strip of new sheet metal to extend the seat-back outward, then weld on a new bead. The shape of THAT part of the seat is quite simple, and I suspect nothing more than a cardboard template taken from a real coupe seat is all that would be required.

Regards,
Ray L.

Quite a bit of work to convert them I think:

This is from Monocouque Metalworks site showing two new seats they made and the differences between OTS and FHC…

Plus the seats would need to be further modified to increase the rake to be correct for a post June 1962 car; work in progress to alter the rake:

Fascinating information David. A couple of other data points, neither of which can be definitive but may help narrow things down a little:

  1. The first part number that you have found for a FHC-specific seat is BD.24175. These numbers were created chronologically, so finding out where it fits in the time-line may help a little. Scanning the SPB file, it would fit between the change that introduced the revised FHC boot lid prop and bracket (P.72) and the one that introduced the revised FHC internal mirror (P.73). The dates on these SPBs are December’62 and February’63, but SPBs often lagged the production changes. More importantly the LHD FHC car#s for the changes were 887317 and 888067, which corresponds to build dates of Oct 26th, 1962 and Dec 31st, 1962. Caveat: Just like any engineering company, it would not be unusual for part numbers to be assigned for new components out of sequence with the date at which they hit production. Some changes take longer than others to design and implement, so this approach has its limitations.

  2. A review of the photos of cars in xkedata of cars built around this time shows that 887406 and 887410 both have FHC seats. I found one earlier car with FHC seats, but it was a full restoration (including LHD to RHD conversion) so the seat frames may also not be original. Prior to that date I didn’t find any FHC seats, but my search was far from exhaustive. Unfortunately, photos of the seat backs are somewhat rare in xkedata, and the fact that these components are easy to change during a restoration limits the accuracy of his approach.

Interestingly, the two sets of data do seem to align, suggesting that the FHC seat BD.24175 was introduced around car#887400 (LHD) at the start of November 1962. Are we sure that this was the first FHC variant of the seat - ie with the more square seat back? Up until now, all I’ve read is that “some early FHCs were fitted with OTS seats”. This seems to be a very different statement than what I think is being suggested here, namely “all FHCs prior to November 1962 were fitted with OTS seats”. If this is really the case, we are talking about a lot of cars. What am I missing?

Just for the sake of argument, if the timeline I describe above is accurate, this would mean the following:

Harvey’s 888055 would originally have had FHC seats
Jeff’s 886953 would have had OTS seats
Clive’s (April '62) would have had OTS seats
Paul Breen’s (Nov’62) would probably have FHC seats unless it is prior to 887400
Scott’s (Sept’62) would have OTS seats
Dunners_Dave (Nov’62) would be on the cusp - what car# ?
Wiggles 886845 would have had OTS seats

All seem to match what the owner’s say with the exception of @Dunners_Dave which is on the cusp. Your car number would be interesting to nail things down.

-David

For completeness of your chronology, my car is 886939, 14 ahead of Jeff’s.

Good bit of deductive research David! I agree with everything you say regarding SPB dates and part/car numbers.

I wonder if we have become fixated on the idea that early FHC’s must have had two styles of seat from the go when in fact there was only one style for all cars - the narrow back seat. We do know 9600 HP had various designs of seat but I think we can remove that car from our data. I guess we need to come at this from the other end and see if there are any early FHC cars on XKEdata (or elsewhere) that have wide back seats. We should not find any such cars up to June 1962 when the FHC bodyshell was completely redesigned; there are six SPB pages of parts that were redesigned/changed but no mention of seats.

There should also be no FHC seat variant with a 10° rake as the modified 20° seats were brought in to make the most of the scalloped rear bulkhead. A matter of trawling XKEdata looking for exceptions. Incidentally my FHC 860294 (March 1962) has OTS seats and known history.

Will do some more trawling!

OMG! You mean there are earlier seats that are even MORE uncomfortable than the ones in my '64 OTS!!! Yikes!!! I hope I never have to sit in one of those!

:slight_smile:

I re-mounted my seats with 1" risers under the front mounts, just to make it barely bearable.

Regards,
Ray L.

Hi David
My car is 887425. My recollection (though it was 25 years ago now) was that my seat shells had the car number in pencil on them.

Ergonomics…:wink:

Looking at me, you’d never figure Tweety’s seats would be suitable.

I took off the rails, mounted them as far back as possible, put the 1/4 spacers under the front… and it t’werent bad.

When I did the SOL, I did ~500 miles, the first day, down: I was hot, I was tired, but not saddle sore.

I had no idea this thread was going to develop in this direction. I’m glad I asked!

I have looked at the Monocouque Metalworks seat shells on their website. If you get to the long blog post (http://www.monocoque-metalworks.com/main/2016/01/3-8-e-type-seats-a-labor-of-love/) there are some side views, of his roadster seats. Very crude but I printed out one of the best pictures from his post and measured the back angle. Not super precise but it measures closer to 20 degrees than 10. (There is a kink in the back. The upper portion is steeper. That is the one I measured. I got 17. Again, crude). He states that he started with the shells from his personal 63 roadster. All of this is to say that his product, which is georgeous, does seem to be commensurate with the above discussion, except if they are 20 degrees, they would not be technically correct for a car built before June of 62. Based on this excellent thread, at this point I am strongly leaning towards buying the MM FHC shells and selling my early 10 degree roadster shells.

Based on current prices, that may make your choice just about a wash.

I was a little confused as to why a set of used seats on Ebay was advertised at $2500. I’ve looked at the ad again and I’m still confused. Whatever, that may be why they haven’t sold. But yes, I’m encouraged as you say that it may be a wash.

This thread makes me laugh. I, too, bought my car (1964 OTS) in boxes. After a 7-year restoration, I proudly began driving it to events.

The Jag enthusiasts began asking, “Why did you put Coupe seats in your Roadster?” My answer was, “I didn’t know any better”. My wife and I actually made new leather upholstery by using the old, worn seats as patterns, so I had no idea.

So, here I am. I need to slide the seat forward when I erect the hood, which is infrequent. Other than that (and a few “Tsk, tsk” comments), I find the car comfortable.

Dave

Those that did such… would not like me.

:confused:

I’m trying to think back to 2 days ago (an eternity as far as my short term memory is concerned) to what started me down this rabbit hole. I think I was looking at some upholstery vendors very helpful charts showing all the pieces and saw a simple diagram for the roadster seats versus the coupe seats. I guess I would have found out eventually when I ordered a kit for a FHC and the covers didn’t fit worth a damn. Cars in boxes are an adventure, that’s for sure!

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Thanks for that update. I’ve now gone through the LHD FHCs either side of the possible introduction of the FHC seats, which looks to be around 887400. Yours is one of 2 cars post 887400 that has OTS seats. I have only found one before 887400 with FHC seats, and that car is a recent full restoration (so the seat shells may well have been changed). As with many things Jaguar, hicoughs in the production line could easily cause one or two anomalies, so I think we are close with 887400 plus or minus 50, say. I’m interested in your comment about the car number being penciled on your seat shells. Was it the car number, not the Body Number? There are many accounts of the Body Number being marked in pencil or crayon on various components of the car so that they could be brought together at assembly time. Examples I’ve seen include the back of door cards, the inside of the convertible top envelope, and the underside of carpet pieces. It would be interesting to know if @Harvey_Ferris has stripped his seats yet, and if so, whether any identification was found on the shells.

When I was about 14, a customer gave me his completely disassembled TR4: didn’t quite get it done for my 16th birthday!

He delivered it all, in the back of s pickup truck… I thought Id died and gone to heaven! My VERY own 1:1 model kit…:yum:

I loved that car…and I feel your pain!

My memory may well be faulty, but next time I have it out I’ll check and see if it was painted over or is still there. Could have been body number rather than car. I recall the dash panels had pencilled numbers also, and body number in crayon inside hatch shell.
Will also check style of Leverol script - I think it was the earlier style.