Bench seat rebuild with 97+ XJ seat belts

[Airborne Janitor]

I know it's super popular to swap to bucket seats in these things but I wanted to keep the bench because my dog prefers it, and I wanted the interior to be different from my XJ. I saw a previous post where someone had stiffened up their benchseat by shoving a cut-up plastic floor mat between the foam and the springs. I decided to do the same to my very saggy bench, using a black office mat I got off amazon. I cut the mat with a pair of scissors pretty easily, don't forget to cutout notches for the seat belts, and just slid them under the springs. Unfortunately the driver seat was super worn and the mat didn't do much (did great on the passenger side), so I ended up cutting up a towel, folding it over, and shoving it between the mat and the foam, and that made a big improvement. I did have to partially remove the seat cover to make room for the towels. My seat is now firm and comfortable. I also ended up replacing the cable that runs from the driver to the passenger rails that engages the sliding mechanism for both. I used a 1/16" steel cable with clamped ferrules at the ends. I also swapped the large springs from driver-to-passenger, since the driver side was a little more worn and it was tough to adjust the seat position.

[Airborne Janitor]

While I had the seat out I decided to replace the worn out MJ seat belts with some 97+ XJ style ones. I'm going for a semi-97+ XJ interior, but keeping the stock seat and dash. They nearly bolt in, but you do have to drill a hole for the B-pillar bolt, and I had to bend the metal "hook" tabs straight as to not interfere with a tight install. For the female seat buckles I pulled the rear seat 97 XJ+ buckles (which have two belts attached to one bracket) and cut the bracket to make a single buckle, and popped the plastic sleeves off so they would fit through the bench seat. They ended up being a little shorter than the stock female buckles, which means I can't move the bench to the full front position, which doesn't bother me since I never keep the seat that close to the wheel. Overall very happy with these small improvements and getting this thing one step closer to being road worthy.

[HOrnbrod]

Nice work and looks good. I hope your dog appreciates it.  

[Pete M]

better than new!  

[coolwind57]

Good work, man.  Yes the office mat worked well for me although what I used couldn't be cut with scissors.  I had to use metal snips.  Anyway, good job "takin' care of business."

[Salvagedcircuit]

Many thanks for this.

These are the few images on the interwebs showing the bottom of the comanche bench seats. PO decided the cable from the driver to the passenger rail was not needed for seat operation