Installing An Interior In A Model A Pickup Truck - A Stitch In Time

We have been working off and on for several years on the Grocery Getter Model A roadster pickup and we now have two out of the three major milestones completed. The chassis and driveline are complete, as is the body and paint. The final major milestone is the interior.

We have read the how-to-do-interior articles for years. And yes, they have given us inspiration, tips, and ideas. But unless you have a walking foot sewing machine and the needed patterns, not to mention the skill, a do-it-yourself interior is not very realistic for the average street rodder.

However, there are alternatives for us do-it-yourselfers. In our case we dialed up the folks at LeBaron Bonney Company. LeBaron Bonney offers premium auto upholstery kits for classic Ford, Mercury, Chevrolet, Buick, and other GM vehicles. We found the LeBaron Bonney staff friendly, knowledgeable, and easy to work with. With over 100,000 kits sold, we felt confident they would meet or exceed our expectations.

We discovered that the original Model A Roadster pickup truck interior consisted of plain, flat, door panels, plain, flat, kick panels, and plain, flat, seat covers. And we believe the original choice of fabric colors were black or oxblood. After all, the Model A pickup truck was a utility vehicle and as such had no frills.

LeBaron Bonney specializes in "original" interior kits, but they are also well aware of the street rod market and were eager to work with us to put together a kit that would meet our needs.

We leafed through their catalog and studied the fabric samples they had supplied. Armed with that information we were ready to order. Since the paint color is House of Kolor Cocoa (root beer) and the wheels, grille insert, and other assorted items are cream, we selected a cream vinyl for our interior. The simplicity of the smooth door panels and kick panels intrigued us, so we went that route. However, we wanted a few more frills for the seat cushion and seat back. We were able to order the seat covers made from the roadster pickup truck seat patterns, but sewn with the wide rolls and pleats, like those found in the more fancy Model A roadster.

The UPS truck showed up about three weeks later and we had our upholstery kit. We also had the burlap, batting, hog rings, and everything required for re-upholstering a Model A roadster pickup. Since we desired to sit a little lower in the truck (chopped windshield) and a little further back (more room) we opted to build our own seat frames instead of using the stock spring set. All those previous upholstery articles afforded us the knowledge to build our own seat frames.

We began our project by making some paper patterns that matched the shape of the seat covers. These patterns would be our patterns for the wooden seat frames and the foam for our cushions 3/4-inch thick marine plywood was cut to form a seat cushion frame and a seat back frame. The seat cushion frame was cut out in the center of the driver and passenger seating areas, and webbing was installed in the cutout areas. The webbing will allow additional give in the seat frame to absorb the shock when we hit bumps in the road. The webbing material is available from almost any upholstery shop, fabric store, or on line. (We had to cut out an area of the wooden seat platform cross brace located in our Brookville Roadster body. The cross brace was located at the area of our seat cushion frame cutouts.)

Blocks of wood were attached to the underside of the seat cushion frame to center it up and prevent it from moving forward. The compression of sliding the seat cushion under the seat back will hold the seat cushion in place.

The seat back pattern was transferred to a piece of the marine grade plywood and cut out. We chose to use the three metal tabs that are on the Model A body to hold the top of our seat back to the body. Metal straps with washers as spacers were fashioned to allow the seat back to slide up onto the three metal tabs. This not only held the seat back in place, it located it near where the original seat back would have been. Metal straps were drilled and attached to the lower portion of the seat back where they could be attached to the wooden rear Model A body supports.

Next, we took our seat patterns to a local foam supply shop and had them cut out foam for our seat and seat back. We sat on various densities of foam until we found what we felt was comfortable. We chose a medium density, closed cell, foam for the seat and slightly higher density (harder) foam for the seat back. Four-inch thick foam was selected for the seat and 2 1/2-inch thick foam for the seat back. Keep in mind we had the thickness of the foam in the rolled and pleated seat covers to consider in the over all thickness, as well as the compression of the foam when we pulled the seat covers tightly around the seat frames.

We used 3M 08090 Super Trim Adhesive to hold the foam to the seat cushion and seat back frames. We coated each piece, waited five minutes (you can wait up to an hour), and put the pieces together. This contact cement has a permanent bond, so make sure everything is lined up when you put the pieces together.

A thin layer of the batting that came with the upholstery kit was applied over the foam on the seat cushion and seat back. The batting is porous and very thin, so a light coat of 3M 08090 adhesive was used. The batting was then pulled around the seat cushion and seat back frames and stapled for added security.

The center of the seat back frame was located and marked, as was the center of the seat back cover. Starting at the center and working our way out, we lined the top of the seat cover up with the edge of the cushion and began stapling the seat cover in place. We then pulled the seat cover tight at the bottom and stapled that in place. Next, we pulled the sides tight and stapled them in place. We found working in the hot sun or using a heat gun helped us stretch the vinyl and kept it smooth and tight-fitting.