Some images from today. The Vitaloni Sebring mirrors which I got from Jesus Pozo are now mounted, and look great- thanks again, Jesus. Likewise the seat harnesses, which came from Olthoff Racing- these are SPF takeouts from someone who wanted track approved ones for their GT40 track car. But these will work fine for me. You can also see the fabric inserts in the seat backs- these were done by Bay Country Upholstery in Annapolis. (see below) Next thing is the webbing.
For this car, since it has a Mark I monocoque, I decided to try to reproduce the seats as they were in a Mark I car. Essentially the construction is as follows: the back of the seat, the thing you sit against, is a molded fiberglass piece which has fiberglass inner rails glued into it. A fabric panel is suspended between the rails, laced into plastic grommets which are inserted into holes drilled into the forward and inner faces of the fiberglass rails. The pacing is done with parachute cord or something similar. The photos I had from Jay, of an original seat, showed a ventilated material with metal grommets in it. The upholsterers here used something a bit different- they used a screen material called Textilene, which does not stretch much and is hardy enough for outdoor use. At the sides, where you see the white solid material, the Textilene is oversewn with a material called Weblon, which is used for making awnings and boat canvas. Small cutouts in the material at the sides allow for the lacing. The lacing is passing around two small steel rods that are at the very sides of the fabric panel. This arrangement should be quite strong and also not bothered by heat etc as these are all outdoor materials which are left out in the sun on boats.
That is what you sit against. What you sit ON in a Mark I is basically a webbing trampoline, made of Pirelli webbing stretched between the metal seat rails which are part of the welded structure of a Mark I GT40 chassis. That is the next thing we have to do- make up the trampolines. After that, the upholstered part is done- the seat back is removed and covered with leather and padding, and the bottom part of the seat is a sort of tongue-shaped construction of more leather and padding (or nylon cloth and padding0 which sits on top of the webbing trampoline and is held to the car by snaps. It is this last part that you see when you look at the interior of a GT40- the nylon cloth or leather areas are the ones with the grommets, or no grommets in the case of my car. But that is what you are actually looking at.
In race cars, the fiberglass seat backs were held in with Dzus fasteners and metal brackets which were customized more or less to each car, as near as I am able to figure. Street cars (like 1072) just had a bolt on the back of that part of the seat which passed through the engine compartment access panel and was secured by nuts on the other side. This arrangement is less secure- the seat back can rock back and forth a bit- and even though this is a street car, we used the Dzus fastener setup which is three brackets and fasteners. Seems fairly secure.
The seat harnesses are secured to a steel rail, part of the chassis, which runs transversely under the glass window between the engine area and the passenger space. AN bolts and spacers hold the metal part of the shoulder harnesses, and metal trims powder coated black finish the slots that the fabric comes through in the rear bulkhead. There are already bolt holders welded into the chassis for the lap parts of the belts, all very neatly done.
Some of the parts for the webbing trampolines came from Forum members, others from GT40 restoration experts. Much obliged to all. I'll post photos as soon as we have something done on those...
