Seat Conversion

[GrumpysMJ]

I havent measured yet, gotta pull the mis-matched buckets I have in now. But it should clear the tunnel. Remember, I'm using the stock bench floor brackets and the bench seat frame just bolts to the brackets with about an inch for the sliders. As the trans tunnel flows toward the back of the floor it flattens out, so I don't think there would be any clearence issue. If there is, a simple spacer could be used between the floor bracket and plate.

As for safty, all you have to do is look at a lot of the custom 40's and 50's trucks where buckets have been installed. They're almost always mounted on platforms or pedastels. If done right I doubt you could even tell it's in there.

Nice part about my plan is that it's all nut n bolt aside from getting the sheet cut.

Only problem I've run into is seperating the slider mechanism from the base. Seems to be rivited and welded.

 

I did not mean to hi-jack this thread, but felt that this was an alternative to using the different sliders/brackets and old seats. I'm sure someone has done this before and mayby not posted.

GrumpysMJ

[noboundaries.jd]

welp, i just finished my seat conversion. it took about 20 hours start to finish and was a royal PITA but, they look good and more importantly, they feel good. i think they may be a lil high. i measured the height of some cherokee seats at the JY and tried to come as close as possible. true, if you have the MJ floor brackets and decent skills you can make any seat work but, it is also true you can take those seats, douse them with gasoline, and set them on fire.

i tried, to no avail, to find JY seats in great shape that would be comparable to XJ seats. the seats i settled on came out of an '87 Celica that was in remarkably good condition. i knew i needed to gain some elevation so i choce to use 1 1/2" unistrut. hey, its solid and its predrilled. i headed home stopping by my shop along the way to make some rough cuts and grab what hardware i thought would work. this install would have taken a lot less time but the trip to the shop to make cuts and grab hardware quickly multiplied. btw...next big purchase will be a welder. the 1 1/2" of additional height from the unistrut was not enough. the seats were too wide and would need to just about clear the top of the tunnel to fit. i drilled out rivets and tacs and removed the feet from the new seats. i then drilled new holes through the sliders where the feet had once been mounted. using 1/4 x 1 1/2 flat stock cut the width of the sliders and 5/16 x 3/4 G5s i spanned the distance from the left slider to the right. I'm certain many of you have done this. i then took 1" square stock cut to 14 1/2" and drilled 3/8" holes that would line up with the mounting holes in the front and rear floor brackets. 2 pieces per side. i cut my unistrut down to 12" and sat it perpedicular to the square tube, directly on top of each floor bracket. i grabbed the seats and set them on top of everything (the 1/4 mounted to the sliders sat on top of and parallel to the unistrut) and made my measurements for the mounting points. i pulled the seats out one more time to drill (2) 3/8" holes in each piece of 1/4 that directly corresponded to the floor brackets. the rear brackets are so low that i actually had to assemble everything including the rear floor bracket on the tailgate which made for a heavy seat finstallation. i loosened the front floor brackets before i installed the seats, sat the seats in, got everything lined up and using 3 1/2"- 4" Gr8s i tightened everything down and voila!

i preferred the 4" Gr8s for alignment's sake but some places did not allow the room for adeed length so i used the 31/2 instead. they are solid, they look like they are supposed to be in there, they were worth it. i planned to take pics along the way to do a write-up but that went out the window with the first snag. once i figure out how to put a pic on here via my phone i'll get a cab shot. they really look that good