Fix your seat… GO AHEAD… fix it!

I just picked up a '98 Takeuch TL26 the other day and one of the problems with it (long list) is that the seat was pretty toast. I mean the mechanism was rusted out so bad that a couple 2"-ish corners of the frame where there's a pin pivot were gone and it was rusted thin near it too of course. Also, the seat itself was about toast as well with the seat pad missing the vinyl completely and the foam pretty torn and hanging on by a thread. It felt like a loose rotating rocker/recliner rather than a machine seat and was probably a safety hazard as well. You've seen this a hundred times. Normally a sane guy would just yank the thing out and replace with new. But the seller did include a seat cover new in the package which would be yet more surplus junk to me if I didn't at least take a closer look. Challenge accepted. Long story short, I ended up welding patches of 1/8" steel to renew the areas that rusted away, drilled those for the pins, and turned a couple new small pins on the lathe. I used some spray adhesive to re-attach the foam to itself and cut & shaped some replacement patches of foam I had laying around to puzzle that back to decent. Also glued some scrap fabric to the bottom of the foam for extra structure and cut out a new sheet metal pan for the foam to sit in on the bottom (that was rusted away pretty bad too). So anyway, after reassembly, lube and a new seat cover, the thing is in darn good shape and should be good to go for several more years of use. It took about three hours or so (it went pretty smooth) and I can certainly understand if a guy didn't want to bother trying to fix a seat that was in such bad condition. But it works fantastic now and didn't cost me any extra money at all unless you count welding supplies and the money originally spent on the stuff I already had on my junk shelves (which I don't count). Since these seats are $300 minimum - and much higher depending... I figure it certainly was worth the time to repair. I just thought it worth posting about since I originally figured the seat was absolute trash, so much being wrong with it before. Since it was a surprise to get such good result from the little time it took, maybe this would inspire others to give it a shot. Likely applicable to lots of other broken junk too. Sorry I didn't think to take photos.