Wooden seat wedges

Does anyone have the dimensions for the wooden wedge strips that seat under the seats, please? Were 120 and 140 the same? This is for May '55 140 DHC.

Thanks Rob - unfortunately my 140 factory parts book has no supplements and virtually no pictures. All I can find, on p.136, under ā€˜body and fittings - open carsā€™ is ā€˜BD9606, Packing assembly under seat runnersā€™. There also seem to be extra packings available in 16swg and 10swg, ā€˜as reqā€™d, for use when extra packing is required under inner seat runnersā€™. I presume these last two are metal and are required to get the seats level across the car.
The Coventry Auto website shows BD9606 as a tapered wooden wedge to sit under the seat runner - but I donā€™t think tapered down from 3/8" is correct for 140. Probably easiest to shell out for the CA parts, perhaps.
Now Iā€™ve found them on the CA site, they say they should be covered in Rexine.

Iā€™m struggling to work out how these bits of wood and the sliders all fit together. Itā€™s really frustrating that the parts book is little more than a list of part numbers, and thereā€™s nothing in Viart at all about seat mountings. Does anyone have a definitive diagram or photo of how this is all supposed to work in a 140DHC?

Roger,

Donā€™t know whether the tapered wedges of the 140 DHC (BD.9606) have the same dimensions as the 140 FHC (BD.10912) but I found in my notes the following dimensions: 12Ā½ā€™ā€™ long and 1ā€™ā€™ wide (320x25 mm), with a taper from ā…›ā€™ā€™ to Ā½ā€™ (3 to 12mm). I used a piece of hardwood but I know others have used oak or similar. My old ones were made of pine (or another similar softwood) but had suffered a lot .
I found some pieces of the original (Suede Green) Rexine on the wedges and decided to use Rexine again. This can be nicely folded around the wedges. See photo below (donā€™t mind the Reutter reclining system on my seat).

Bob K.

Hello Bob,
Thanks for posting the photo - looks really nice, and I do like your recliner mechanism! If your piece of wood is 12.5" long (covered in red vinyl), your runners must be shorter than mine as my metal runner is 14" long. So the FHC runners must be around 11.5" long, maybe, allowing for the wood being longer as in your photo. The wooden strip in your photo doesnā€™t look as if it is tapered, though?

Getting confused now. I do wish the parts book or Viart didnā€™t ignore these parts. The only reference I can find is the drawing on Coventry Automotiveā€™s web shop:

The wedge they sell is only 12.5" long, but the seat runner that sits on top of it is 14" long. The wedge has holes that allow it to be bolted to line up either at the front or the rear of the seat runner, presumably to give more adjustment, although it seems odd that the seat runner overhangs the wooden wedge as itā€™s longer. But the drawing shows 2443, the retaining plate, as having two screws going downwards. I thought this was fixed beneath the floor? So why are there screws pointing down, into thin air? The floor canā€™t be positioned between the screws and the retaining plate, as the top of those holes for 2359 in the retaining bars are countersunk.
???

Iā€™m only familiar with the 120 OTS, which as all wooden floors. The two shorter centre screws are there to retain the tapped plate under the floor at all times. The holes in the floor should be countersunk. The longer outer screws of course attach the seat runners through the floor to the tapped retainer plate. My tapped plates had no countersunk holes.

Thanks Chris, still confused. My tapped plates are the originals, and the two holes towards the centre are both countersunk and tapped, which is really weird. The two holes at the ends are not tapped nor countersunk, but there is an extra hole inset from one end which is tapped but not countersunk. All four plates are the same. The floor was too rotten to tell if the holes were countersunk or not, but surely a countersink in 20ga steel would weaken it? And why countersink the plates if they have sheet steel floor above them? Donā€™t get it.

Assuming the 140 is the same general construction idea as my 120 FHC, the 2443 bar should be under the metal floor panel, and the 2359 flat head screws hold it up, and the holes in the floor and bar are countersunk so the screws will sit down in it. They do not significantly weaken the floor, as there is no force trying to pull them out. The NS525/12H screws go through the countersunk holes in the 2440 runner and straight holes in the 2445 wedge into the 2443 bar, in which there should be non-countersunk threaded holes for them.
The only questionable thing is that you say some of your holes in the 2443 bar are not tapped. I think they should be. Further investigation is indicated.

Thanks Rob, thatā€™s starting to make more sense. As you say the two ā€˜centreā€™ holes do little more than locate for assembly.
As with most XKs, the floor on my car was extremely rusty in this area, easily the worst rust on the whole car. Itā€™s more than possible that the end holes have lost any thread form due to rust.
But - can you explain why the wooden wedge that Coventry Auto supply is only 12.5" long, when the runner 2440 is 14" long? Seems odd to me to leave part of the seat runner unsupported - and which end of 2440 should the wood align with, front or back?

I can only guess that Coventry is acting on wrong information. I made my wood pieces 1" longer than the runners.


Roger,

I did this more than 10 years ago and I might well have made these wedges a bit longer than the length I found somewhere. The seat base is identical for all XK 140 versions (BD.9933 & 34) so your assumption that the wedge on the photo is longer seems correct. I sold the car so cannot measure the real length.
Sorry for the confusion.

Bob K.

The seats have to sit in such a way that the seat back should be:

  • on the same height,
  • spaced equally form top to bottom
  • inclined at the same angle.

If you think you can achieve it on a restored car with the standard tapered seat wedges, you are probably wrong.

So, I would say that get any tapered wedges, fit the seats, space them correctly with washers so that the seats look perfect and them ask a friendly wood shop to make the seat wedges at the right angle. Be prepared that each one may be differentā€¦

Tadek

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Can someone tell me if the XK120 OTS cars are supposed to be fitted with wooden packings between the seat runner bottoms and the carpeting? The parts book has part numbers BD4750/1 and BD4750/2 listed ā€œAs requiredā€. Both of my OTS cars donā€™t have them. Of course they do have the tapped plates for securing the seat runners, but thatā€™s under the floorboards.

If the OTS cars require these, then what would be the dimensions and the difference between the two part numbers above? And would these packings be tapered or flat?

Thanks.

I made hardwood spacers for mine . I was not aware at the time they are wedges . I did have to make mine different thicknesses to get the seat backs to line up .

Thanks for replying Jim. Whether these are required for an OTS or not, Iā€™m thinking it would be a good idea to install something. Otherwise, the bottoms of the seat levers and related pivot points have the potential to snag on the carpeting. I know your car has metal floorboards so since you had to use different thickness, then I expect mine to be more so as Iā€™m reusing old, but still serviceable, plywood for now. I do recall having to slightly push against the left hand seat in order to tilt the right hand seat forward so packings/ spacers should also help with this too.