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A seat spring popped through my upholstery so am in the process of re-bagging all the springs and fixing other seat issues, and installing new batting and jute before I re-do the upholstery next fall
Along the leading edge of the front seat is a steel rod and parallel to it is a coiled spring rod. Some of the seat springs are tied to this, others are tied to the main rod. This spring runs the full length of the front of the seat and is also wrapped in burlap.

Question I have is what is it's purpose and where should the seat springs get hog-ringed to? Someone had reupholstered this about25 years ago and was inconsistent in the hog ring placement

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.. to tell you maybe more about this "coilrod" I need pictures I can see more of the cushion without the burlap and a bigger section of the seat cushion.

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John (jwblazek), my read is, that the coiled spring rod was retrofitted 25 years ago. Latest Saturday I'll fly home and look for more or less suitable pictures.

I found no such spring when my original seats were rebuilt and re-upholstered. The frame had two sections that had broken and these were welded.

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I restored at all the seats of a 1939 Super 8 Convertible. The car had original seats .. metallframs are brocken all metall parts very rusty. But the upholstery and seats was never restored and untuched. You can see this at the pictures. The place of this "coil spring rod" is not on the front upper frame rod. There has to be min. 3 "coil spring rods" more. because they are sitting across the seat between the pocket spring core rows and fixed with a clamp on each spring. The springs of this seats was covert in linen cloth not in burlap. Each row had a number because
they had diffrend strong springs in it. Very special for this time and of course very luxery. On top of the burlap which covert the springs on top was a wire network wich distribute the pressure better on the springs.
I`m sure that you will nerver find this pieces if the seat was new upholstered someone before. I?m also sure that you?ll not find the leather fixed to the wooden parts at the old fashion way by blue-head nails. To much work for the upholsterer .. they cant make money on this way.

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Great feedback all, many thanks !

Here is a photo of the entire seat. I erred when I said this "coilrod" is on the leading edge, it is on the trailing edge of the seat.

Also interesting work from the last time the springs were covered, they are sandwiched between two layers of burlap so each of the springs in a given row are tied together with the burlap across the entire length. I did not know this and made 66 individual burlap/jute sleeves that I am attaching to the top and bottom frame pieces and too each other at the spring junctures

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Fabulous information Carl, thanks.

My 39 is a 1700 so leather was not available and seats were covered in broadcloth I believe originally

Briefly, my Dad owned the car for about 30 years and although a junior model, had very unusual options such as artillery wheels, Goddess of speed with wings, deluxe heater and defroster and most unusual and rare, a tachometer mounted where the clock usually goes in the glove box door. It is mechanically driven off the rear of the generator

Other than the interior being touched and the car sprayed about 20 years ago, car is predominantly original.

Thanks again ! Photos are of great assistance. Surprisingly, except for some surface rust and two clips that either broke or were not installed, the seat frame is intact and free from cracks. The two clips supprted the wire perimeter top frame and was missing from the driver entry side and to the right of where the drivers right leg is positioned, hence the terrible sagging which led me to believe the seat had several broken springs. GHowever, none are broken. I see 3 teype / sizes so far and taking a very conservative approach, doing 1 at a time

If you got the intention to rebuild the whole cushion you should absolutely make the spring core bags in a row. They work tougether only if they are conneted by clamps in each way as they has to. Single bags are much to weak and instable. The seams between the bags should made by an industrial sewing machine and a strong thread. Otherwise they will rip off under diagonally pressure and the springs loose there function.

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Thanks again Carl. As I had mentioned, I made individual sleeves for the coils based on something I found on the internet. I'll scrap them.

Curious you said your sleeves are out of linen, seems kind of light weight. Thinking of denim or canvas? Comments?

And a question on the clamps that secure the frame rods, are these available in less than bulk quantity and if so, what are they called? Short of that, how do you join these, I don't want to weld them up

in further review of the sleeves, I see they are all hand stitched at the bottom. I am contemplating marking the material with a marker the entire length, insert a spring, compress the spring so I can feed the material and spring through the sewing machine and sew on the aforementioned line and when I release spring tension, the spring goes back to its proper height and continue for the entire row of 11 springs

This would also assure all springs are of the same height, initially. Comments on this are appreciated too

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The original material of the sleeves is linen. Compared to denim it appears to be of poor tensile strength but that's a widespread misperception. It is linen that makes the Dollar bills tearproof, especially when wet. That and an absorbency, ten times higher than straw is why handkerchiefs or hotel dishtowels are made of linen. And there's more to it than that.

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Canvas and denim allow electrostatic charge, linen doesn't.