Troop Seats Refinished

[Utah CUCV]

My troop seats are done. I mostly used the original wood, but did need to replace a few pieces that were too far gone. I sanded off the horribly peeling paint, then finished with boiled linseed oil. If the paint felt like sticking in a few places, I left it on. On the pieces that required new wood, I left them more or less natural except for the linseed oil. But I found the bright yellow a little distracting on boards that could be seen from the side of the vehicle, so I painted those faces OD green. I believe the end result is pretty hot. It incorporates the fact that troop seats always looked rough and weathered, but they are actually smooth enough for a baby's butt.

I really love my truck. She's so incredibly beautiful.

 

[quickfarms]

nice work

 

[scoutmanadam]

looks great, nice looking truck to

 

[Cucvnut]

looks good! some times I wish I had kept mine.

 

[IdahoPlowboy]

Good job, And yes your truck is beautiful.

 

[Ripcord01]

You did a very nice job on the restore of the troop seats. Did you use pressure treated wood for the ones you had to replace? We need to see more picsof the truck..

 

[Utah CUCV]

I never could figure out what kind of wood is original, but it reminds me of cyprus that I used to work with as a kid installing boat docks in Florida. I wanted to use cyprus, but couldn't find any locally. So I went with cedar.

 

[ralbelt]

Very nice indeed! My M1008 is also solid green 383 carc. I have not gotten the troop seats yet, they are in Georgia awaiting transport to R.I. You have done exactly what I want, Good Job.

 

[Utah CUCV]

A couple of nuggets of info, for those about to attack your CUCV troop seats:

There are 4 seats per side. All the boards to the seats are the same size. But the bolt holes are different. The #1 seat closest to the cab is obviously different. The #2 seat looks a lot like #3 and #4, but the holes are slightly farther from the edge of the boards on one side. #3 and #4 seats are exactly the same. I didn't notice #2 was different from #3 and #4 until I had trouble reassembling #2 boards onto #3 and #4 seats. I started calling them "goofy footed..." I really don't know why I picked that name, but I had to call them something.

I spent about 10 hours sanding. Flipping each piece 12 times in the vice (4 on coarse, 4 on medium, and 4 on fine grit) took a LONG time. Including the back rests, that is 528 times in and 528 times out of the vice. If you can find an innovative way to hold the boards without messing with closing and opening a vice that many times, you will save yourself a lot of effort.

 

[Flyingvan911]

Nice job. I need to tackle the troop seats and bows on my deuce.

 

[yamabro]

Really nice attention to detail. Great work and pics

 

[True Knight]

Nice, I've had mine taken apart for far too long now...

 

[bigjmcconnell]

Nice to see your truck getting back to its military glory. I'm guilty of modifying everything, so I can't fault anyone, but soon it will be hard to find one that looks original.

Nice work!

 

[Tlauden]

Very nice! I gotta ask a newbie question though, what is the linseed Oil for??

 

[maddawg308]

That's the nicest pair of troop seats that are original wood I have ever seen. Even with sanding and power washing, 30 years of weather have taken their toll on most of the troop seats I have seen, with swelling, shrinking, cracking, splits, etc. Yours look like the wood was replaced, not refurbished. Great job.

 

[Utah CUCV]

Boiled linseed oil is a wood preservative. Instead of painting the seats I wanted to keep them rustic looking. The reason is I never saw nice pretty troop seats even when these trucks were new. They were always nasty peeling splinters in your ass. I wanted to get rid of the splinters, but keep the weathered effect.

Now that I think about it, too bad the manufacturer didn't use linseed oil originally. Think of all the splinters that you wouldn't have gotten every time you had to ride in the back of a 2.5 or CUCV

 

[Utah CUCV]

That's the nicest pair of troop seats that are original wood I have ever seen. Even with sanding and power washing, 30 years of weather have taken their toll on most of the troop seats I have seen, with swelling, shrinking, cracking, splits, etc. Yours look like the wood was replaced, not refurbished. Great job.

maddawg308, have you disassembled your seats yet? I was sure I'd have to replace 100% of the wood. But once I took it all apart and stripped a few pieces I decided it was in pretty good shape. I don't know what kind of paint they used, but the way it cracks and peels makes it look like the wood is in much worse shape than it really is.