Club 80-90 Forums

There are so many seat Conversions out there, that i thought it needed it's own dedicated thread, if we get enough posts then the thread will be stickied by Mocki and keep as a database for members to consider swapping in their own vans in the future.

If you can also add in information about the conversion to let others know if they were just a direct bolt on replacement or if they needed modification like seat rails swapping over, welding etc

I'll Start, this isn't my van, its mrjsgraham and jasd1978's vans on here but this is just to get the thread off to a rolling start as an example

"Porsche 996 seats

Fitting them was a bit of a pain in rear. Firstly the runners didn't suit the existing ones. I got an adapter laser cut from work, but with the plate on top of the existing rails, the passenger was too high (with the swivel).
Ended up taking the head staggers and drilling out the spot welds. If you got to take these off be careful. if you only drill through 90% of the rail…. don't try and pry the rail off, you will end up ripping the paper thin material below. This is the wheel arch in my case…. out comes the welder.

I ended up welding a 20 x 5mm mild steel bar (pre tapped to bolt the seats to) and welded it onto the van. The seats just bolted straight on.

As the seats were electric, i just needs to put a supply onto them. No it didn't, it took hours to figure out how to get the drivers seat to work. I put a 12V supply but nothing worked. After a bit of research I found that there is an added memory module built into the driver seat. I didn't want to use this function, just wanted the electrics to work. After further research on the web, found this picture which helped me out."

Perfect timing as I am looking for options on seats.

Got Granada Scorpio seats in mine - the back part is electric and they're also heated and proper comfy. I bought them for £20 and came with the VW runners already on so slotted straight in:



I recently sprayed up the side panels as well:

Who trimmed your door cards (bottom pic) Justin? They look reet tidy!

what2do wrote:Who trimmed your door cards (bottom pic) Justin? They look reet tidy!

Howdy Mitch,

I was lucky enough to buy them for a bargain on Gumtree - they were brand new but owner decided against using them as wanted to go back to original. The company that did them were called Retro Retrims as they were stamped on the back:

http://www.retroretrims.co.uk/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

300CE wrote:

what2do wrote:Who trimmed your door cards (bottom pic) Justin? They look reet tidy!

Howdy Mitch,

I was lucky enough to buy them for a bargain on Gumtree - they were brand new but owner decided against using them as wanted to go back to original. The company that did them were called Retro Retrims as they were stamped on the back:

http://www.retroretrims.co.uk/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks, I'll be checking them out.

Came across these on ebay with fitting/mod guide


Alfa Romeo 156 t.Spark leather front seats

I have been using these in my VW t3 / type 25 and I have modified the runners to fit on to the VW T3 / Type 25 seat box over the top of the Factory T3 seat runners. To fit to your van you just need to drill 4 holes through the seat box to secure.
The passenger side was hasn't been modified, I just had it bolted to my swivel seat base. but it would be fairly easy for you to duplicate the mods that have been done to the drivers side should you not have a swivel base.

I've just bought a set of Mazda RX8 seats that I'll be trying to fit on swivel bases. Came about as a result of getting a quote for renovating and recovering my existing OEM seats....HOW MUCH.!? From owning an RX8 a few years ago I recall the seats are relatively low profile so hopefully they won't end up too high. £75 including the rears (which I'll turn into a sofa!). Will be a couple weeks before I get onto the project but will try and post pics if successful!

If you hear nothing you may assume it didn't go well!

If I do get it sorted I'll be looking to sell the OEM units on. For not very much.

Got a set of electric tombstones in mine too, I removed all the original porsche sliders from mine and mounted them directly onto a pair of swivels, then bolted an original set of vw sliders under the swivels so they can be slid back and forth or even removed completely just like VW intended

I have MG TF seats in mine. They are small bucket and not very high if you are 6 foot + they come in full leather.
Will try some pics soon.

Well based on a quick 'whip the old one out and rest the new one in' trial methinks they're going to look OK!

OK as promised some pics of the install. I've done the passenger seat first as there is better access, it's not electric and I can still drive the van whilst the work is being done!

There are a number of ways of doing it, for example, fitting the seat runners from a VW seat to the donor seats and using the existing rails on the van or removing the existing rails and using the donor ones. I opted for the latter as I'll likely add swivel bases at some stage so wanted to keep the height increase to a minimum (or ideally have no increase at all) and it simply feels safer to me - especially with these seats where the rails are maybe 4-5cm wider apart than original so I'd have welding to the edges of the undersides.

So, first job is to remove the rails fixed to the seat boxes in the van. I've been told they can be chiseled / drilled out (drilling the spot welds) but I couldn't see the spot welds to get at and my attempts with a chisel quickly started to cause damage to the seat box (which is the upper side of the inner wheel arch so we don't want any extra holes in there thank you very much!).



Therefore the only choice I could see was to set to with the angle grinder. Not an overly tricky job but time consuming and made a lot of mess in the van. Be careful where the sparks go (not least of your eyes and other painful bits - wear appropriate PPE!) but also any fabric they alight on they'll leave a little pin prick burn. Anyway, several discs later I was getting down to something like a flat surface to mount on.



There was a bit more work done after this to get the mount area flatter but I didn't take a photo of that as the rain was threatening!

Next job is to remove the brackets from the underside of the RX8 seat undersides - basically anything that can come off does leaving a flat runner. These various brackets are held on with what are essentially large non flush rivets so it is not too difficult to grind the heads off then tap the brackets off. Before and after shots (against courtesy of the angle grinder):





After that it is 'merely' a case of getting them lined up on the seat boxes. I found that lining up the back of the lower RX8 rail (i.e. the bit you fix to the van) 0.5cm forward of the where the old rail used to finish got my the position I wanted. Laterally i went as far towards the outside of the van as possible without fouling the seat belt so as to maximise the walk through area. There is a lip you can sit up against that then meas there is no visible gap between the seat side trim and the 'floor' of the van (actually the wheel arch of course). This also meant I was pretty much iun the middle of the main mounting areas so best for strength. Then drill through the lower rails (I used 8mm drill for 8mm zinc plated nuts and bolts) and mount. I've mounted with 4 bolts initially but when I change to the swivel bases I'll bolt AND weld for extra security. One 'gotcha' - check inside your wheel arch before drilling - there are likely to be expansion bottles for the fuel tank in there (1.9DG petrol in my case) and you don't want to drill into that, or the top of your tyre for that matter! Do, of course, make sure the frame sits totally square or the seats won't run back and forth easily. On the inner mounts (i.e. nearest the handbrake) you are working entirely inside the van, it is bit tricky to get the nut on but the old blu-tack on the end of a finger trick did the job. I used 8mm dia bolts with a 13mm head - any bigger on the head and you'd struggle to get a socket into the rails to tighten plus the seat may not slide over the bolts (the rails have built in end stops - unlike some they don't rely on the mounting to act as a stop).

So here's the finished result and a second pic showing that the ride height is, if anything, a touch lower (leaving room for the swivel base in due course), albeit hard to show as with a parallax you can make it look higher or lower in a photo, I did try to take the pic at eye level!





So I still need to re-trim around it (I'm changing from the plastic trim to carpet anyway) and wire up the heated pad; I will do that in due course as i have the correct Mazda switch for the dash but need to create a dedicated fused circuit of the correct rating. I won't bother with the seat belt warning circuit on the passenger side as it is annoying when you put your shopping there! I was able to use the seat belt 'receiver' which is mounted on the seat so have done away with the VW one mounted on the side of the seat box.

Driver's side will be a bit trickier as i suspect i'll need to apply power to it before fitting to get the rails to move. I didn't separate the lower rail from the runner (frankly couldn't see how) so just accessed the front and rear mounting holes by running the seat to one extreme or the other.

Well, I think they look ok, and it is certainly very comfortable. Will get a good test this weekend on the run to jimmy's Farm for Alive and VDubbin.

Not much in the way of pictures of fitting, but I went from this:


to this:


As bought the van had one original seat, and one T4 seat on a swivel base. No idea where the base came from, but it very neatly converted the T3 rails to the T4 mounts.

The Porsche tombstones are blue leather from a 993, and quite worn, but I kinda like the look. Also they were very cheap as the are from a LHD car, so an odd mixture of electric an manual. It does mean they have both have electirc front and rear height adjust though, so they can be mounted low, and adjusted to suit, rather than many conversions that bring the seat up way too high, and leave no room under the steering wheel.

The passenger side swivel mount had the T4 rivnuts cut off, and the holes welded up, and new ones drilled for the Porsche runners.

The drivers side one has the Porsche runner still, mounted through new holes in the seat box - essentially just sitting on top of the VW runners. They line up ok on the inside, but have a spacer bar on the outside runner to keep it level. It means the seat is ver slightly offset from the original position (by about 5-10mm) but it isn't noticeable when you drive it.

The rest of the Van interior will be reworked in this blueish theme once I have finished sticking the outside back together!

Cheers
Mark

Looking good guys, this threads turning out to be pretty good

Saab Seats

bmouthboyo wrote:OK So I managed to drill the base runners out for the Drivers Side as that side would be too high with the runners in and the height adjuster.



The passenger side I will be welding a lip to the cut out VW swivel base and bolting it the the passenger base runners (not cutting those out as the swivel would be too low then and foul the surrounding area).



So my next step is to bolt these seats down.

Firstly the Driver side:
What length M8 bolts would you recommend? 30mm?
Washer width?
Nylock Nuts be ok?
Will the bolts going through to the wheel need welding to the metal or OK to just tighten normally?

Passenger seat / swivel base:
Will standard nylock nuts for M8 bolts fit OK to secure the swivel to the base runners? or should I use normal nuts?

Thanks for any help

bmouthboyo wrote:All sorted





I kept the height adjuster on the drivers seat and the height is perfect for me. Thanks for the help guys