a couple questions; 1992 split bench & carpet/mats

I was wondering if anyone might offer some suggestions;

First off, the seatback lock on my passenger seat seems to generally do nothing;
How is the seat lock supposed to work, so that I might diagnose what is wrong with it?

Typically, if no one is sitting in the passenger side, and I come to anything more than a slow/gradual stop, the passenger side of my bench seat just flops forward - I'd really like to fix it so that it stops this.

Maybe there is some sort of upgrade I can do by grabbing latch pieces from other year trucks?

I want to retain my original seat.

Secondly, short of going to an upholsterer and having foam built up, are there replacement seat foams available?
I have done some cursory searches and found nothing;
The foam on the outside edge of drivers side seat bottom is weak, and is quite soft compared to what I believe it should be.
My drivers side seat bottom is fine enough, it has a couple small spots where the top of the fabric cover appears to be mia, but otherwise it looks great. I have understood authentic covers are not available, so I am glad that for the most part my seats present well as is.

Regarding the carpet, mine is mostly fine, but starting to show it's age, has anyone purchased replacement dark red/burgundy carpet so that they might offer feedback on the quality/appearance of it?

Does anyone know a source of authentic looking replacement carpeted floor mats?

Thanks in advance to anyone who might be able to speak up.

A picture of my interior is attached here as a reference.

I am going to give this thread a small BUMP instead of posting elsewhere;

Has anyone purchased the OE style ACC (Auto Custom Carpets) cutpile replacement carpet OR floormats for their truck?

I have been ready to pull the trigger on this for a couple days, and cannot find ANY feedback on their parts for our trucks.
I am assuming the carpet will be straight forward, but at nearly $100 (I'm not stateside after all) for the two floor mats, I would REALLY like to hear or see how they stack up against the originals.

I was looking for floor mats at the 2019 Portland swap meet, and found nothing close - and since the 2020, and 2021 meets have both been cancelled, I haven't had opportunity to look any more.

I have LMC and 'Truck Shop' catalogs here, but neither say who's carpet/floor mats they are selling, and I really prefer to know what I might be ordering.
I have found good online reviews for third gen F-body owners about the ACC mats, so I am really hoping they are a near match (less GM logo).

It is also worth noting that what I have seen of the reproduction seat covers offered for our trucks, that I was thoroughly unimpressed.

I mean no offence to anyone who has them or likes them;
I realize the OE look would be hard to replicate bang-on, but if you can buy nice really nice 1980's & 1990's Firebird/Camaro seat covers and even Fiero seat covers then look at the truck offerings, the truck covers really come across as half baked.
The replacement Fiero seat covers use different material and are not exactly like original, but they look quite nice - and they had better at their cost. But for what I am seeing of the seat coveres offered for our trucks, and the asking price, I would have expected better.

I am grateful my seats look as well as they do - and have considered buying a nice spare (correct colour) seat if I come across one - even if it isn't the same split bench style.

I guess as a summary, I'd like to know if these ACC floor mats look like the generic floor mats you might buy at an auto parts place thirty years ago.

I decided to email ACC after attempting to call, and getting an "our offices are close" voicemail reply.... fingers crossed that I hear back from them.

On the 88-94 seats, maybe try Acme seat covers. Rockauto (and probably others) sell them. The photos don’t look bad, but I’m not sure if they’re the same brand that have gotten marginal reviews by others.






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ACC are the only carpet kits I'll install in my shop. They tend to be a little on the large side & do/will need some trimming. Better that than be too small.
No experience with their mats. If the customer wants such, I'll usually make them to order.
ACC's carpet kits use the same materials I have access to from my suppliers, so I'll either order a yard or 1.5, depending on the style of mat requested by the customer, from ACC, or local if the customer decides after I've ordered the kit.
Carpet roll stock is 40"wide.

The only replacement upholstery covers I've seen for the style of seats you have are all of the type that get installed over top of the existing seat skins.
Same principal as the seat covers sold at WalMart. IMO, the end result is the same & not worthy of the time it takes to install 'em.
Maybe I'm biased because I've been doing upholstery for over 40 years, but to me, those are seat 'covers'.
Some here have bought them. If the covers serve their purpose & the customer understands what they really are & they're happy with them, fine.
Not exactly what I would call 'upholstery' though. IMO, they're a band-aid. They don't address the usual cause of the upholstery to wear out in the first place, which you've noted in reference to the foam breaking down.
Those 'covers' are putting lipstick on a pig. Like building a house on a cracked foundation.

That hinge mechanism needs to be inspected. Sometimes it's just crud that's built up over the years or something has gotten inside the mechanicals that is preventing it from latching.
Sometimes it's the actual metal of the latch that gets slightly tweaked.
Only way to check is to get in there & dig around a bit.
You should be able to do that with the seat in the truck. Slide it all the way forward & then flip the seat forward. Under that backrest is a zipper. Undo that & roll up the cover about 3 or 4 inches to gain access to the hinge. The seat only has a single latch on the outside towards the door.

sewlow said:

ACC are the only carpet kits I'll install in my shop. They tend to be a little on the large side & do/will need some trimming. Better that than be too small.
No experience with their mats. If the customer wants such, I'll usually make them to order.
ACC's carpet kits use the same materials I have access to from my suppliers, so I'll either order a yard or 1.5, depending on the style of mat requested by the customer, from ACC, or local if the customer decides after I've ordered the kit.
Carpet roll stock is 40"wide.

Click to expand...

I would expect the carpet to be made oversized, and trimmed to suit.

I did get clarification on the floormats... well a reply, but not much to go on:

ACC said:

The only images we have are the shadow sheet showing the shape of the die cut floor mats, as shown on the website – we do not have images of the finished product.

Click to expand...

The cartoony image they have is of a perfect rectangle with rounded edges, not precisely the shape of my mats.

My mats have a rectangular shape, but about halfway up the sides the edges tilt in to make it ever so slightly narrow at the top.



I have a feeling, I'm going to have to just order them, and hope for the best.

sewlow said:

The only replacement upholstery covers I've seen for the style of seats you have are all of the type that get installed over top of the existing seat skins.
Same principal as the seat covers sold at WalMart. IMO, the end result is the same & not worthy of the time it takes to install 'em.
Maybe I'm biased because I've been doing upholstery for over 40 years, but to me, those are seat 'covers'.
Some here have bought them. If the covers serve their purpose & the customer understands what they really are & they're happy with them, fine.
Not exactly what I would call 'upholstery' though. IMO, they're a band-aid. They don't address the usual cause of the upholstery to wear out in the first place, which you've noted in reference to the foam breaking down.
Those 'covers' are putting lipstick on a pig. Like building a house on a cracked foundation.

Click to expand...

I agree 100%, those are not proper covers.

I am grateful my seat covers are mostly fine as-is.
I am keeping an eye out for another spare seat for foams and/or covers. To that effect, I was tempted to buy a 1990/1991 bench seat this past weekend;
It is not a split bench like mine, but a full bench;
It did not have the 1992 style head rests - it had no headrests;
It had some tearing at the top seam of the rear side of the cover (at the seam of the proper seat cover to the fuzzy backing), which made me hold off on buying it...

sewlow said:

That hinge mechanism needs to be inspected. Sometimes it's just crud that's built up over the years or something has gotten inside the mechanicals that is preventing it from latching.
Sometimes it's the actual metal of the latch that gets slightly tweaked.
Only way to check is to get in there & dig around a bit.
You should be able to do that with the seat in the truck. Slide it all the way forward & then flip the seat forward. Under that backrest is a zipper. Undo that & roll up the cover about 3 or 4 inches to gain access to the hinge. The seat only has a single latch on the outside towards the door.

Click to expand...

I actually bought a hinge setup from what I thought was another 1992 truck, but after I got it home, I was wondering if it was for a different year, because it's not the same single weight style as what I have.
The one I grabbed had two weights, and it looked like to tabs - mine had just one big one, and no tab per-say;
I fiddled around with the one original to my seat/truck, put some lube on it, re-assembeld it in place, but observed no change.
I didn't see any tweaking of anything, but I also don't know precisely what to look for.
I ended up finding that if the washer (that I believe to have originally been on the outside) is either moved to the inside or removed all together, the seat latches fine - it just doesn't want to release.
I any deviation from the original configuration meant I had to back off the front hinge bolt to get the hinge to where I can jiggle the seat and get it to unlatch - but I didn't like having that bolt backed out.
For now, I just left it assembled without the washer, and it doesn't want to lean forward at all - which would only be an issue if I need to remove my jack.

I am all ears if anyone has any suggestions on how the "weighted" hinge mechanism work, and if there is a "how to" diagnostic procedure from a GM service manual on how to confirm it functions correct.
I GM service manual is the only real piece of literature that I have yet to own/buy for my truck.

(part 2 of today's update)

I did find some replacement seat belts which were the same style as mine (namely lacking the black tops which identify the belts with the different width male ends);
My original belts had two differences;
1) they had a "Bedix" logo/name on the back side - these replacements have a square box about the same size as the original in which the Bendix name is, but it's blank.
2) one of the female ends at the drivers side pair had a two wire plug which was probably a belt minder.
On this second point, I did notice that this wire inside the buckle was frayed and split on my belt, so it was an open circuit - hopefully this replacement set won't cause any dash light to kick in... if so, I'll figure out a solution.

These belts had the colour matched sleeves almost perfectly in tact - to prevent any further wear till I figure out a permanent solution, I tucked the ends back into the buckle, then wrapped some electrical tape at the top to hopefully prevent any further fraying.

I now need to figure out how to pop these buckles apart so that I can look into hopefully properly fixing my original belt buckles.


/\ In this picture you can see the black wire lead that I believe is for the belt minder - as well as the main reason I wanted to find replacements - the steel cables are a little unsightly.



Here's the Bedix logo that is present on my original belts.



Note the lack of a Bendix logo, and the fact that the steel belt cables are completely out of sight.