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MG MGB Technical - Seat spacers and carpets

Hi,

I have new carpets and underfelt in my B. I just placed the wooden slats and metal circular spacers on top of the carpet before fitting, but I think when tighteneing them I have flexed the rails so the seats don't slide very well. Clearly its hard to get a tight fit with the carpet in place.

Should I cut a hole through the carpet/felt and have the metal circular things resting direct on the floor pan?

Thanks,

Liam
Liam H

How deep is the carpet and underfelt? Your solution sounds counter intuitive. With the spacers on the floor pans, wouldn't the middle of the rails still be riding on high on the carpet, with both ends lower on the pans then they are now?

I would loosen the bolts until the slides work, and then gradually tighten the bolts over time as the rails and carpet settle in.

good luck,
dave
Dave Braun

Hi Dave,

It does sound odd doesnt it.

The carpet is pretty thick, and the felt.

The issue is that if I loosen them to straighten the rails then they are not tight enough to be safe, if you see what I mean.

Liam
Liam H

What I did was make cut outs in the carpet so that there is no carpet between the packing pieces and the floor. The I made a short slit between the cut out and the leading edge so that I can fit and remove the carpets while the seats are in place. Ideal as my car ia a roadster!
David Witham

Seat height is always an issue with MGB's
Personally like to be able to see a little over the windscreen. Wind deflection ensures good driving even though I have to squench down a little when the roof is up. Actualy, if it wasn't for the jeers and derision of the general public, I would happily dispense with a windscreen and wear a leather flying helmet and goggles as per Biggles. "to the Swopwith camel Alygy, away!!"
Cut out a section from the under felt. Go wide, under the seat doesn't matter. You might also consider shaving the pile under where the track goes.
Peter

You have to cut holes in the carpet and allow the spacers contact the floor in order to be able to bolt the seats tightly to the floor. However don't bank on the seats being easy to slide even although you do this as the floor does not seem accurate enough to allow proper alignment of the rails. An adequate quantity of grease on the rails during assembly will however help.
Iain MacKintosh

Yes, the spacers go in holes in the carpet/felt, and rest solidly on the floor. If your carpet is very thick, it will distort the rails so you have trouble with the seat slides. In that case, you need taller spacers (washers), to unload the rails.
If the floor has been replaced/patched, there may be distortion such that the 4 mounting points are not in the same plane; local shimming may be required. If necessary, fit the rails without carpet until you get them to slide nicely, then choose spacers to suit when fitting the carpet.
Like all the other stuff people say is "always a problem", this is mostly down to bad work and lack of understanding. Correctly mounted and lubed, the seat rails work just fine - I just put one together, and can slide the seats from outside the car with one hand - it wasn't like that when I started!

FRM
FR Millmore

Liam

I didn't fit any felt under the carpet, and dispensed with the wooden slats, i was trying to lower the seats though. I just fitted tin foil under the carpets, as with you it is a V8 conversion and the foil was to protect against the exhaust heat. Maybe you need the underfelt for some noise reduction, with mine being a roadster and the noise from the exhaust it wasn't going to make a lot of difference.

Glad to see you have now taken it out on the road, it makes all the heartache of a conversion worthwhile :-)

Graham
GLG Lavis

The metal spacers contact the floor pan direct and the wooden spacer strips clamp the rubber mats. This has to be a problemn with carpets which are about 10x the thickness. Both seats in our car slide very easily, but it is still on original unwelded floor pans.
Stan Best

The way the interior is set up may have changed over the years. The way any interior has been redone, over the last 27+ years, may be different from how the factory was doing it at the time the car was initially produced.

I just completed installing a set of rebuilt seats on the 79 B I have been working on this year. It is an original Arizona car which had been sitting for a number of years with a seized engine. I purchased it over seven years ago and now have a chance to get it up and operating. With an original 78K miles on it, it is one of the most original cars I have seen around.

The carpeting under the seats was a very thin material, glued to the floor around the edges. The packing strips were the normal wooden ones, of 1/4" thickness with the metal inserts, which seem to be aluminum, of the exact same thickness. Below each of the metal inserts was a shorter shim, of about the original thickness of the carpet, serving the same purpose as Fletcher has mentioned--allowing the metal inserts and the wooden packing strip to ride on top of the carpet.

The use of wooden packing strips is interesting. A number of us have discussed this before and the only conclusion which makes sense is that it was done to keep the few un-retired wood workers at the plant employed. The T series used a wooden frame and the MGA used wooden floors. With the unibody construction, there was no need for any wood to be used. But, MG decided to use wooden packing strips between the floor and the seat rails for the MGB. This poor design only makes sense if it was done to keep one or two workers around until they reached retirement age.

Many years ago, realizing that the wooden strips attracted moisture, retained that moisture, tended to warp, crack, and caused rusting on the steel parts they were in contact with, I replaced the three piece packing strip system with a single piece of 1/4" thick by 1" wide aluminum strip. Paul Hunt has the original article on how to make them on his website, "The Pages of Bee and Vee" should anyone be interested in making their own. Gerry Masterman made these parts commercially for several years.

I am still using the same basic design. But, now I am securing the runner to the aluminum packing strip using two button headed cap screws. When this is done, you simply slide the runners into the seat frame, set the seat frame into the passenger compartment, and bolt the assembly down with a minimal amount of pieces to juggle together and get into alignment. Takes less than 15 minutes to install the seats now. Something which took a lot longer when using the factory system.

Les
Les Bengtson

Thanks for the input, lots of ideas. I shall work at it and see how I get on.

Liam
Liam H

I was under the impression that the purpose of the round spacers was to accomodate the thickness of the carpet. To do so there would have to be holes in the carpet so the top of the spacers is somewhat level with the top of the carpet.

This then also puts the spacers directly on the steel floor, maintaining a solid steel to steel link between the seat rails and the floor.

BH
BH Davis

I'm still making and selling kits that include the packing stripa, spacers and new stainless steel bolts, using either the origional design strips in PVC or Bob's design in aluminum. www.gem-enterprises.net
gerry masterman

Thanks gerry, but our Royal Mail is now charging $15.00 just for getting anything from outside the EU through customs! Then we need to add 17.5% on top.

Liam
Liam H

Hey Gerry,

I just had a look at your site, full of useful stuff.
You have a few stray visible java script lines floating about.

Regards, Liam
Liam H

bump
FR Millmore

This thread was discussed between 29/06/2007 and 07/07/2007

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