I Just got my new seat covers from legendary for my 1970 Cutlass Supreme. Bucket front seats. Should I try to save the original springs or buy new springs? And if I go new where is the best place to buy them? It seams there is a large difference in price from Ebay all the way up to Legendary. Are there that much of a difference or are they all pretty much made by the same company?

 

I would avoid new springs if at all possible. The new bucket seat sets I've had experience with were a mess. One pair was installed by Legendary on a customer's seats....in a '72 442 convert. They sat way too high (head hitting the top) and I don't buy the story of "they'll settle down over time".

Another set was on a local customers driver side bucket....same result.....he sat way too high in the seat. That set may have come from OPGI (many years ago) but I don't recall 100%.

If the springs in the seats you have are in relatively nice shape then consider just repairing any broken springs. Contact Rambo on this site and see if he still sells any repair sections, etc. I thought I read where he may have stopped doing any seat related business but he knows his stuff and maybe he's still selling various seat related items.

 

There’s a difference in height between the seat foam vendors as well. I don’t remember the brands but there have been numerous discussions about it, where one brand is thicker and results in a higher seated position.

 

>Worst fit/too high/too thick - The cheaper priced seat foams. Saguaro is/was the poster child for these cheaper foams. There may be other cheap/ill fitting foams sold by OPGI and/or The Parts Place. Avoid all of these.

>American Cushion Industries ("ACI") - much better than the cheaper, ill fitting foams. For years, looked at as the "go to" foams for our bucket seats. Still a bit thicker/taller than the originals but manageable when installing seat covers.

>Thornton Reproductions - The most "exact" repros of the original foams. Not oversized like the other brands and accordingly, not a struggle to install new covers over. Price is very good as well.

 

I got all of my seat stuff through legendary
I need to go back and look what I got. Ordered everything in December and it's all been slowly trickling in.

 

^^ X2 on ACI cushions. I bought these at the suggestion of Rambow (member here on CO) for my front bucket seat project. I'm VERY happy with the way they turned out. They were a little (not much) more expensive than some of the others on the market. I am not sorry for the (little) added expense. They are very comfortable. As 70Post says, just a tad thicker/higher than OEM.

 

You most likely got the ACI foams if you bought foams in your Legendary order. I think Legendary wised up and stopped offering the terrible cheap foams as an alternative. I doubt Legendary carries Thornton's foams.