AzStar Posted November 11, 2009 Report Share Posted November 11, 2009 Guys, I am on the trail to solve this seat relocation thing. In the initial stages of "discovery" but from what I am seeing this is NOT going to be very hard to do. As JustPau mentioned the biggest PITA will be the lap seat belt reel and I believe there are two paths forward. However I need to fab the brackets for the seat first then I will know what I have to deal with. I will update the this thread as I go, but with a little luck in a couple of weeks I will know exactly what is possible and how to solve the "issues". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cobalt60 Posted November 11, 2009 Report Share Posted November 11, 2009 Thatd be cool. I definitely feel a little too tall for this car (6'1"). I actually had to install a much smaller steering wheel just to fit in this car. The steering wheel is 13" and any bigger and I know my leg would hit it all the time. Before I got used to the 13" wheel even, my leg hit it a lot and caused it to be sore. I also always wondered if the seat could be lowered a little, though thats probably not necessary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AzStar Posted November 12, 2009 Author Report Share Posted November 12, 2009 Thatd be cool. I definitely feel a little too tall for this car (6'1"). I actually had to install a much smaller steering wheel just to fit in this car. The steering wheel is 13" and any bigger and I know my leg would hit it all the time. Before I got used to the 13" wheel even, my leg hit it a lot and caused it to be sore. I also always wondered if the seat could be lowered a little, though thats probably not necessary. I did some putzing around today, pulled the floor mounted lap belt reel. Should be able to move the seat back to something around 4" or so. The front brackets on the seat rails will need to be modified (extended) and welded but will bolt in the same location on the front two corners. The trans tunnel mount will need to be modified (elongated) and welded but it will bolt in the same location on the trans tunnel. The rear door side mount I'm trying to come up with a bracket that will bolt to existing pedestal and maybe use one of the bolt holes currently used by the floor mounted lap belt reel. In any event, pretty sure that all this can be fabbed up without doing any welding inside the car. All parts (seat rails, mounts, etc.) can be welded on the bench. I intend to swap my car over to the door mounted seat belts that I got out of the 83 parts car I have. But I am trying to see if there is another way to do it as well. I have a seat belt reel (generic) that I took out of my 67 Fairlane and I think it can be mounted on the rear floor foot well in a manner that will allow the belt to function but still allow the seat to move back over it (for the extra travel). I have a business trip coming up so it will be a couple of weeks now before I actually get any of the fabrication and welding done (my buddy does the welding). Should happen the weekend before or week of Thanksgiving. In any event, I am pretty confident that this is doable. I'll provide pictures and updates when I actually get into it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bmx152 Posted November 18, 2009 Report Share Posted November 18, 2009 lol i wish i was 6'1" im 6'4" and still growing lol for me every car feels too small Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patra_is_here Posted November 18, 2009 Report Share Posted November 18, 2009 im just over 6"1. I lowered my rear seat mounting points down about 1.5 inches and it helped alot (cut and rewelded the mounts on the body). also gave more head room which was needed when i have a helmet on or a top hat =| and, it also gave the seat a bit more layback, which is comfortable but it did bring me slightly further away from the steering wheel and heater controls. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coke Posted November 21, 2009 Report Share Posted November 21, 2009 Meh, I've been 6'5 since I was a senior in high school, when I bought my first quest. I've grown "used to" the position I have to assume while driving these fandangled cars. Hahah. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AzStar Posted November 23, 2009 Author Report Share Posted November 23, 2009 Ok lads.... Got to the seat relocation action today and I believe I am one bolt hole away from skinning this cat.I added 5" of seat travel and the seat goes back to and touches the leading edge of the rear seat bottom cushion. So easy a Caveman can do it. I will put pictures up some how that shows everything I am going to try and describe. As someone else mentioned in a different thread. The major issue to overcome in the relocation of the seat to the rear is the seat belt reel located behind the seat. The first thing you need to do is to remove this reel (Keep all bolts associated with this OEM reel as you will reuse them.) Then, there are two remedies for this seat belt problem. One is to convert to the door mounted non-automatic shoulder belts as found in 86 and older StarQuests. The second is replace the OEM reel with a different type. The one I used for planning purposes I took out of my 67 Fairlane and originally sourced from Ssnake-Oyl, a seat belt restoration vendor. On the link below the one I have is the HL800. http://www.ssnake-oyl.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=Ssnake-Oyl&Category_Code=2PRL I would imagine the HL23122P might work as well as in the picture the reels look nearly identical and we won't be using the female portion of the seat belt anyway. But if you decide to go that route you might want to call Ssnake-Oyl and ask them. ( I will ask when I call them myself as this is the route I am going to go for the time being ) The metal insert on the HL800 will not match our female end attached to the seat. I don't know if the different style on the HL23122P will work. For me, it doesn't matter, I plan to "harvest" the Turbo belt webbing from my OEM reel and have it sewn into my HL800 reel. The local shop pulls all the belt out of the HL800 and then cuts off most of it, retaining about 4" of the HL800 belt that is afixed to the the reel. Then they will sew in the Turbo belt that I have harvested from the OEM reel and it will all then retract into the HL800 reel just like a factory setup. So I kill two birds with one stone, I will have OEM Turbo belt webbing and the correct insert for the seat belt buckle. There are two places I can see to mount the HL800 reel. One is on the rear seat floor board foot well, flat on the floor with the belt angled towards the door and slightly upwards. The seat will clear the reel in this configuration. The second place, and I'm one bolt hole from confirming it will fit, is to put this reel under the rear seat cushion. From under the car the floor pan is double wall construction in this area. However from under the car there is also an access hole through the first wall and I can touch the underside of the floor pan under the rear seat. I intend to drill a hole and bolt the seat belt reel under the reat seat in this area. I will prove this plan out on my parts car and post up when I am sure it will work. Bottom line I am 100% sure the seat belt reel can bolt to the rear foot well floor pan and 95% sure I can put it under the rear seat for a cleaner installation. Obviously very large washers should be used when attaching seat belts to floor pans. The seat belt relocation is a done deal. On to the seat mounting brackets. The seat bolts in four locations. Two front tabs that go over floor mounted studs and two rear mounts, one that bolts to the trans tunnel and one to a floor mount pedestal that is built into the car inside of the rocker panel just forward of the OEM location for the seat belt reel. I have a friend that can weld so I proceded with my modifications with the availability of a welder, however I believe that it might be possible if you can heat and bend metal, that you could fabricate everything I did and just bolt some things together instead of cutting and welding. My suggested install. Cut the front tabs off, just the tab, not the box portion of the seat bracket to which the tabs attach. Then take 6.25" metal bars and weld the tabs at the correct angle to the bars. Next, weld the bars to the seat brackets themselves. Note, line the bar up so it can be welded to the bottom of the seat bracket on three sides. This effectively extends the front tabs 5". On the outside the extension rests on the floor pan raised area and there is little to no flex. On the trans tunnel side the bar showed a little flex so consider welding a stiffener brace under it. On the back corners it is all bolt in. On the outside (rocker panel)use the front bolt hole that originally held the OEM seat belt reel. Cut a 3" piece of angle iron and drill a hole in the middle of one side. Reusing one of the bolts (and spacer) that use to afix the OEM seat belt reel, bolt the angle iron into the FRONT hole indicated above. (Put the spacer between the angle iron and the rocker panel. This moves the angle iron out to the proper alignment.) Place the seat in the car and bolt down the front corners. Now mark the angle iron where you need to drill the hole to bolt the seat track to the angle iron. Use the original bolt that use to hold that seat corner and source a nut that will fit. (I welded the nut on the back of the angle iron but you could just use a wrench). Next, move to the trans tunnel corner. Use a maker and mark on the carpet the location for the trans tunnel bolt. Then, remove the seat and with a razor blade or X-acto cut a small portion of carpet and padding out. Next, put the seat back in and bolt it in place. Make sure the seat isn't sagging on the trans corner and with a marker mark the trans tunnel. Remove the seat (yes I know this is tiring) and drill a hole into the trans tunnel. At this point, while you have the seat out, take the original bolt that was used on the trans tunnel and put it in its ORIGINAL hole and tighten. (don't want any fumes or leaks in that area). Now get the other bolt and spacer that held the OEM seat belt reel in (we used one already, you should have one left) and put the spacer between the trans tunnel and the seat bracket. Source a nut ( I used a nut from my parts car, the one from the front of the seat)and with help, or very long arms, put the bolt through the bracket, spacer, trans tunnel and reach under the car and put the nut on the bolt. Tighten this bolt up fully. Make sure all your bolts are tight. You may need to push in on the rocker panel rear corner when tightening the bolt there. If the track isn't fully aligned inboard the seat may rub the rocker panel when moved fully to the rear. I'm happy with what I've done to this point. I've got more leg room than I need. One thing I noticed is pushed almost all the way back, I've just about run out of adjustment on my passenger side mirror. I have it adjusted all the way out and it is fine. But it came real close to not having enough travel. So, there it is! Obviously some things I've done MIGHT compromise safety. I'm going to "splice" seat belts together, I am relocating seat mounting points (remember one side of the seat belt connects to the seat) and finally I'm relocating the seat belt reel to another location. If you decide to do a similar modification you are on your own with respect to your personal safety. I don't want any complaints if some one wrecks and their seat doesn't stay attached to the car. We are all big boys and girls here. Note: I am not going to be able to attach all the pictures to this thread they are too big. However, I've made up a 5.5MB MS Word Document with pictures inbedded. PM your email and I will gladly send out a copy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AzStar Posted November 25, 2009 Author Report Share Posted November 25, 2009 Well, I can confirm that the seat belt reel will go under the bottom of the rear seat. A hole can be drilled for the seat belt bolt and accessed from under the car. So that is what I am going with. Off to Ssnake-Oyl to order the reels. YOWSA! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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