Prefect - 1st build

[Gojeep]

Great to see you bite the bullet and get on with the repair.
Often worse in your head than the actually doing of it!

[Chrisso]

Nice progress Simon looks as if you are makinf a fair bit of headway mate nice work.

[Havok1]

Good work! You're right about getting something done each week, I need to take your advice there! Some progress is better than none. Nice touch keeping the original cover.

[SimonG]

I have been chipping away at mounting some seats and stared with the rear as wasn't sure if it was even possible given the size limitations.
I had the rear seat out of my donor Festiva and you can see how much wider it is compared to the Prefect.



I stripped it to a bare frame and narrowed it so that it would fit between the wheel arches.


I also removed the brackets that were in the original Festiva so that I could mount them to the mounting pads that I had fabricated.




Once I was happy with the fitment I then plug welded the original brackets to my pads so that they were mounted with the same strength as the original car,




and I have a seat base mounted with the ability to fold like the original if I decide to go that way.




Now I just need to weld in the mounting pads and narrow the back rests and hopefully it all fits like I think it will

[Chrisso]

Nice work Simon rock on mate

[Beelzeboss]

Now it fits like it was made for the car!

[steve the ford guy]

Your moving forward Simon

[Sly Fox]

Clever work going on there Simon, nice job.

[Gojeep]

Nice height off the floor for your legs. How's head room?

[SimonG]

Thanks for the positive feed back and as for the head height it is just under 800mm which is not so comfortable if you are close to 6ft but well above the requirements for minimum height of 710mm. It would have been more had I not channeled the body by 200mm but it looks much better lower

[SimonG]

I have kept going with the back seat and as the donor vehicle had fold down seats they are quite easy to work with and to disassemble.







I have just narrowed it in the flattest section so that it was easy to weld back together


As I have kept the basic seat shape I have been able to section the foam as well and refit it roughly to the seats for now








The seats are a bit tight against the body so If I decide to keep them folding I will have to reduce the frame size a little but at this stage I think I will fix them so removing the locking mechanism will give plenty of clearance. I am also tossing up reducing the rear window size so that will give some extra room against the seat backs too.



Onto the front seats next

[Sly Fox]

That's starting to take shape, keep plugging away.

[Chrisso]

Nice work Simon, lookin good.

[SimonG]

Like a lot on here life has been very chaotic this year so not much shed time unfortunately. I have been putting too many hours into making my seats fit so needed to feel like I was moving forward and with the help of the brother inlaw decided to tackle our flip front idea. The things you come up with after a few beers I had some brackets laser cut way too long ago and whilst they were too low it gave us the right material to get something to work









It has only been tacked on at the moment, so will need some decent bracket but it was very satisfying to be able to open and close it easily

Now I just need to stretch the guards a wee little bit............

[Gojeep]

Great to see you back at it.
Should look pretty phat once the guards are widened.