Have A Seat: Driver and Assistant Driver Chairs

In my quest to try to get as many of the "big parts" cleaned and primed before rigging up the paint sprayer, I decided to venture back to the roach motel (shed of dying jeep parts) and dig out the driver's chair, as well as the front passenger seat.

All in all, it could have been worse.  The main glaring eyesore (except for the multiple layers of faded, chipped paint and rust) was that Bubba expanded the gas tank filler hole in the seat pan of the driver's chair.  Oh, did I fail to mention that the driver sits atop of the gas tank?  Sorry.

In all their glory...and 70 years of neglect.

For whatever reason, especially this late in the game, I have become smitten with trying to wet sand off the top layers of paint in order to expose the original OD. I figure if I really don't like it, I can always sand it down to bare metal and paint. However, I can't ever bring back the original OD once I remove it! 



This is the backside of the driver's chair. 
I have sanded away the civilian paint on the center area and part way across the upper area.



This is the bottom of passenger seat and looking pretty green.
 It looks better without the flash of the camera.

This is the backrest of the passenger seat.  Hard to see, but I did manage about 50% of the original OD. 
However, I wasn't too happy with it and sadly sanded it to bare metal.

Jack took this one.  It'd be a great one of the jeeps if I had backed up a few feet!

Here is a shot of the extended filler hole. 
The right side with the nice curled edge is good, but Bubba got a bit crazy hacking out the center!
 I'll fix it...rolled edge and all...although I haven't quite figured that part out with my limited resource center.
 



Here is what is left of the saved original paint:  underside of passenger seat, backside of driver's seat.



Now, on to the repair! The first thing I did was to get some measurements from my good jeep and then make out some cardboard cutouts. One cutout is the exact size of the required open hole and the second one is the part that will be welded into the chair.

New piece in place.  Not my best work, but I'm OK with it.
 It was a challange due to the amount of "rolls" in the chair and making the lip. 

It is definitely visible.  I will defintely cover that up with a cushion!!

These are some other "bolt-on" bits and pieces I cleaned up.  Found three more F marks!

All of these parts were primed with the chairs.  I forgot to take a picture of the passenger seat, but I did not do anything to it except paint it.  I don't think you are really missing out on anything, unless, of course, you enjoy watching paint dry!  I lack the patience to do that.