Fitting After Market Fronts Seats, Help Needed

[Reeco]

Hi All, I have bought a nice set of after market seats for my 2.2 DTi RS SWB, now then what I would dearly like is for someone to help me, how I would go about this, I have bought 2 universal sub frames, the height of the seats are 36 inches and the width is 20 inches, how would you go about this and who would you ask for help. TYVM in advance.
ATB. Reeco

[alex]

I was going to use the universal mounts, but having loked at the floorplan I decided to chop the seats apart with a grinder and use the old ones. Unfortunatley there is a height drop to sort too, so there will need to be some packing material on the door sides, which will be visisble.

I am hoping to sort it today and take some piccies, just need to drive to work without seats in....

I have used some 5mm wall odd leg angle to produce the differential in height, just be aware of height on finished job. It was easy to get the seat square in the car, but having sat in it, it was much higher than original, so mr.grinder came out again.

[FUDDY MUCKER]

[Reeco]

Hi All, TYVM Alex, I shall look forward to reading how you completed the job. ATB. Reeco

[4x4 bobby]

[alex]

Will get round to piccies when I find me phone dongle. But heres how it went.

I had hoped I could retain the upper part of the subframes, this just gives you the big slide forward on the seats for passengers in the rear. Unfortunatley the vx seats fit in and around this upper slide to reduce overall height, this coupled with the extra depth of the buckets led to it being a bit too high for driving.
So I had to remove that without losing fingers (they fly at a rate without a seat attached). This also reduced height under the seat to about what I had before (welding in tight dark corners again ).

Welding was a breeze as the runners are fairly good gauge and decent material, I also had a decent gauge angle to weld too. There was the usual fire risk and a few warm bits. The underside of the buckets arent as pretty as the heat did get to it, but hey whos going under there.

All in I cut corners, but if I were to do a real job it would be tacked inplace removed for welding and bolted back.

There is certainly a fair amount of steel in a fronty seat, shame its only held in by 4 8mm bolts in slots

[alex]

Ok so heres a couple of piccies after the entire subframe is removed from the seat and put back into the car. (would be as well to do this at time of hacking the seat off, but you live and learn).



Thats the start.



To get a sensible seat height the top half of each side on the subframe needs to come off. The upper is just the long slide mechanism to allow easier access to the rear.



Chop the end off, chop the retainer off at the pivot and beat the upper off the lower.



Once the upper is off you can see the two pins that hold the lower to the bit you want to keep. Either drill or grind the pin and presto you have anice surface to weld to.

I couldve used the subframes I got with the seat, but they were wide and would have needed even more work to fit the floor pan, this I'm afraid is my best solution. Just need bits of angle bolted to the underside of seat, trimmed to right height and welded to runner.