Front seat: NOT ENOUGH ROOM !

[Stangninjak]

Heh I'm back. I am 6'4 and 280 pounds. Needless to say I am not a small guy. I had knee surgery not so long ago, and when I bought the car, I sat in the passenger side and thought, 'well I should have enough room.' Well I don't.

So my question to you experts is, how do I move the front seat back ? Like 4inches or so. Are there longer track rails ? Can I just pick the entire track up and move it back ? I know in my X-Cobra, I bought those BIG MAN rails for it. I really want to keep the retro seats. So any info ol great sages of yester year ?

Thanx in advance

 

[Bullitt]

your best bet is probably going to be to get someone to remove the seat risers. this will not only lower the seat for headroom, but you can then have a lot more freedom in mounting the seat to the floorpan and/or making new rails.

 

[ttoney]

I am 6'5" and have thought about getting an extra set of seat rails to extend the original a couple of inches. 5 inches would probably require moving the risers. That might cause carpet fitting issues, but IDK.

You might want to pull a seat, look at the whole setup, or ask a machinist for ideas. Machinists are "the *****" for figuring out trick ways around things like that. Especially HotRod Guys.

 

[65 fastback]

Mustangs Plus has a great Tech Article on removing the raised seat platform to create greater head room and providing more leg room.

http://www.mustangsplus.com/tech/seat/index.html

Tim

 

[Stangninjak]

w00t Thats exactly what I needed Time to find a machine shop, or hmmm maybe my bud can do this. But that is defintly on the 1st mod to do list !

 

[dennis112]

Good stuff, for sure.

 

[RGS0907]

I'm exactly 6' and wish that I could have just one more click on the track. But what we used to do on these cars is just remount the seat track back a few inches. You will need to drill new access holes for the seat bolts in the floorpan, but it's a fairly easy mod. I just can't bring myself to do it to my GT500... I'm still trying to stay as close to stock as possible.

 

[dennis112]

Mustangs Plus has a great Tech Article on removing the raised seat platform to create greater head room and providing more leg room.

http://www.mustangsplus.com/tech/seat/index.html

Tim

OK folks, I just spent the last couple of days doing this to my 65' coupe with 4 speed and pony interior. Sorry no time for to take pics, but I'll list some of my experiences.

First of all, the work is not as simple as the article seems to imply. I've done numerous body panel replacements throughout the years and so I wasn't afraid to give it a go. I would not suggest someone try this unless they have the tools and decent mechanical abililities.

Using an air chiesal and a grinder, I spent 1 hour removing the driver's side platform and about 35 minutes removing the passenger side (experience from doing the driver's side helped.)

I next ground the old welds on the floor pan to ensure that the rebuilt platform would fit well flush.

It took about 1 hour to bend and refit the driver's side platform. The article mentions how to do the front and rear, but because the platform needs to wedge between the tunnel and the rocker, you must also do some modification on the sides. Lots of hammering, grinding, and clearing was required. Again, experience gained allowed me to do the passenger side in about 35 minutes. I shortened the pan approximately 1 1/4" total front and rear.

I then drilled numerous holes in the flanges of the platform and then plug welded the platform to the floor pan using my mig. I located the platforms slightly further to the rear of their original position. I can just barely put the nuts on the studs of the seats. I also had to cut down one of the seat track studs because it protruded through the floorpan mounting hole. Spent about 30 minutes per side.

I then installed the seat and discovered that the clearance gained by chopping the platform down 1 1/4" really seems minimal. My knees still hit the pony pistol grip door handles and the steering wheel when I need to use the clutch--and I'm only 6'2"!

So my opinion is that modifying the seat platform would be great for someone who has an automatic transmission. For those with a stick (and pony interior), it will give only minimal help when using the clutch.

My next step is to modify the seat tracks to see if I can move them back further. Anyone have experience in this that they would be willing to share?

 

[reenmachine]

I then installed the seat and discovered that the clearance gained by chopping the platform down 1 1/4" really seems minimal. My knees still hit the pony pistol grip door handles and the steering wheel when I need to use the clutch--and I'm only 6'2"!

So my opinion is that modifying the seat platform would be great for someone who has an automatic transmission. For those with a stick (and pony interior), it will give only minimal help when using the clutch.

I've done this mod for a customer, and to complete the package we did a Flaming River tilt column. Between those two mods you gain quite a bit of room for your legs/knees.

 

[65up2d8]

As I stated on another thread regarding seats, I completely removed the seat platforms when I replaced the floorpans and installed my '86 or '87 GT seats in about 1990. I'm not sure that I'd recommend it knowing what the good folks at :SNSign: have taught me since that time. However, I welded two heavy gauge, angled steel braces to the rockers and the transmission tunnel to mount the seats from on each side, and I have subframe connectors. I think it's fine at this point.
If I had it to do over, which I actually do and will at some point, I would probably still do almost the same, but I would tie it into the subframe connectors and the floorpans in a couple of places. The stock seat risers are not that rigid, though, and I believe you could safely do away with them with the proper bracing and mounting points for the seats. I totally believe my seat mounts are mounted more rigidly than the factory riser mounted seats.

 

[12sec67]

i'm not a welder- so i work with what i have.

when i did mine --- instead of removing the whole floor pan i cut the exisiting floor pan exactly in half and popped the spot welds on the tunnel. then set the pan i just cut down over the existing area that i had cut and used self tapping screws to hold it in place. it lowered the seat pan 2" and since i bought summit racing seats i had to make new track holes anyway which moved it back another 3"s.