It was a special day for Cinnamon. The seat is in!!!
After a long wait, I picked it up from the upholsterer yesterday. He did an awesome job with the covers. Since I have been trying to do as much of the build myself as possible(and I'm pinching pennies), I had planned to have him just sew it and I was going to install it. I mentioned previously that I had taken the frames over so he could check the pleat alignment. Well he ended up installing, added some padding and hog ringed it. He did charge me a little more than original estimate, but considerably less than original 'installed' price.
I still had a good bit of work to do to finish the job. I had not gotten to fix an issue with the driver seatback frame. It never latched back as nice as the passenger side. He mentioned it when I picked it up. So that was first. It was binding under the latch area. I opened the cover and ground the frame a little to gain some clearance and closed it back up with new hog rings. Still a little tight, but much better. And I don't expect it to get much use anyway.
Next I took the backs off again and put the little plastic cover on the center post, tucking it in under the vinyl. Finished painting the headrests and plastic sidecovers with SEM Light Parchment 15823. Sprayed the spring clips that hold headrest position with rust reformer and black finish. Cut the slots for seatbelts through the vinyl by first running a heated taper punch through creating holes. Then cutting between with scissors. Put the belts through. Hooked up the driver belt wire. Before I put the seat in I decided to take advantage of the open space and cleaned the inside of the back window and vacuumed the carpet good.
Installed seat bottom in car. Attached wire to harness under carpet and bolted down. Bolted the belts in. Opened holes for headrests by cutting an X with razor blade. Then find screw holes with an awl and assemble the post guides. Put headrests on and install seatbacks in car. Installed side covers. One of the flip levers had a good chrome end. Tapped that on. cleaned up the other one and painted with Krylon chrome spray to be installad later.