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seat upgrade

35K views 37 replies 27 participants last post by  Wsmatau 
#1 ·
Hi All

Want to replace my 66 seats with safer more comfortable ones, I saw on you tube some one put e36 BMW seats in, so is the theory this, you can put any seat you choose in all you have to do is use the tracks on the original mustang seats plus any mod, am I correct. Really need help on this
 
#14 ·
I like the Procar seats. Can you tell me what extra parts were required to install them in your car? The description says that they include sliders. Did you have to do much custom fabrication?
 
#3 ·
Not exactly ANY seat. I remeber a buddy who score some nice Tbird (I think) seats and put them in his MG. He managed to miss the fact that they were so wide he couldn't close the doors until he was done putting them in.
Some seats are more adaptable than others. Tracks can vary wildly on OEM seats, older Jeep Cherokees and '90's VW's for example have really screwy tracks and their seats are very difficult to mount to different tracks. Stuff like that can be done but for most folks isn't worth it.
"Height" is very important. If you are average size and swap in the power and tracks and 1994+ Mustang seats you'd have to drive with your head tilted at a 90 degree angle. You can swap the seats onto vintage tracks but a those over 5'9" or so might not like their heads brushing the headliner.
Doing a swap that no one else has tried is a pretty big gamble.
I put leather seats from a Mitsubishi Starion in my '67. Surely not everybody's cup of tea and making them mount to the floor pan to my satisfaction was a pretty major ordeal. Not a swap I'd really recommend (like anybody is really going to find such seats in nice condition these days).
 
#4 ·
I have a set of Tuner type seats ( Driver FX) in my car that were a little wider, I got some 1.5" wide flat stock from Home depot and mounted that to the seats and then mounted the seat tracks to the flat stock, made it easy to adjust the seats from side to side also.
 
#5 ·
Fiero seats are a fairly common route to take as well. Nearly a direct bolt in but you will have to make some minor alteration bolt/hole locations to make them fit.
Nice thing is you get a higher back seat and good side bolstering and don't have to modify the seat pan height. And did I mention you can get them fairly cheap?!
 
#8 ·
I went with Procar seats from Scat also...these are more of a sport seat. They did sit a little high, but I re-fabricated the brackets and they fit nice now.
Tom
 
#9 ·
Im ordering some sport seat conversions from TMI. They look pretty sweet and use your original seat backs so no modifications to make them fit
 
#10 ·
I just finished an install of '91 mustang GT seats and am very pleased with the results. These seats have many adjustable features such as lumbar, knee bolster, and seat bottom side bolsters. There's a company called TMI which produces covers that match the rear seats.

While I was at it, I lowered the seat platforms 1 1/4 inches to provide me additional headroom as I'm 6'2" and could use the extra space.

 
#11 ·
I put '87-'93 Foxbody seats in mine also ('89 I think) as the above poster did. I also appreciate the added features - ~full tilt, electric lumbar, adj. bottom side bolsters, headrests, etc. My choices were limited as I have red interior so none of the aftermarket offered red as a choice, found mine on CL for ~$75 and they matched pretty well (better than the faded to pink stock ones). I will be recovering them with the TMI kit Classic Automotive Interiors - Restoration and Restyling Products for Classic, Fox Body, and Late Model Mustangs

to match the stock horizontal stitching on the seats and swap out the 'breadloaf' style headrests for the foxbody ones on the black seat in the upper left pic on the TMI site.

At 6'1" I wanted all the headroom I could get so I fabbed some 1" wide 3/8" steel flat stock as a spacer to shift the seats back 1-2" and now have plenty of leg room, you can also tilt to get more head room. The seat bottoms are the same height as the stock '67 seats, I used the foxbody sliders as they worked smoother and just fabbed a piece of 1/2" wide alum. flat stock into a 'Z' shape to clear the sliders and hook to the lever. I don't weld and did it all with a hacksaw, drill and file and a few grade 5 carriage bolts to clear inside the sliders. I may find a stronger T head bolt when I recover the seats.
Jon




 
#12 · (Edited)
I tried a few different styles of seats (BMW, Mustang etc) and was just not happy with them.

Finally settled with the Fiero seats, IMO they are a great upgrade for a few reasons:

+ Very short at the front edge so its easy to slip under the steering wheel
+ Comfortable with good bolster
+ Light weight ~half the weight of the BMW seats I tried
+ Not overly tall, really tall seats just don't look good IMO
+ Inexpensive and easy to find
+ New upholstery is available and can be made to match the OEM upholstery (Mr. Mike)

Picture here....
 
#13 ·
so is the theory this, you can put any seat you choose in all you have to do is use the tracks on the original mustang seats plus any mod, am I correct. Really need help on this
That was my theory...and it's dead wrong!

Found an awesome set of BMW seats on C-list for a really good deal.

Went to do the install, and discovered that the height from the base of the tracks to the part your butt goes on is WAAAAYYYY taller than the stock seats, so that I couldn't fit my legs under the wheel.

No problem, I wanted to move the seat pans back a little anyway, since I'm kinda tall. I can cut them down at the same time. Once I got the pans out, I discovered that to get them sitting at the correct height, the pans had to go away completely! This entailed a whole lot of fabrication, cutting the floors out over the convertible pans, fabbing up new floors with heavier gauge steel plate that could handle becoming the seat mounting surface. Once that was done, I discovered that the lower seats now couldn't sit flush because of the tunnel taper making the area narrower when the seat got lower (hope that makes sense). Probably not a problem if you don't have a vert with the inner rockers in the way. But, I wound up having to do some more fab work on the tunnel, boxing in an area that allowed the seats to sit down flush and slide on their tracks.

Moral of the story--you can NOT take just any seat and swap the tracks. Do a LOT of measuring to see that the height and width are compatible with your existing seat, or you're going to have problems. LOTS of problems...

I'd HIGHLY recommend picking a seat that others have had success swapping in with little or no modifications.
 
#18 ·
yeah I just found today that the Ford Probe seats I have probably wont fit. They would squeeze in but the tracks are about 2 1/8 too wide on each side. I would make a bracket for them, but I would have to raise the seats up and wouldnt be able to fit under the steering wheel.

Oh well..... to the trash they go.

For what its worth, they are comfortable....
 
#19 ·
the bmwe21 seats are all around, they are also found in many other cars like VW's, alfa's audi's and many more, the cool thing is sliders and adapters for scat,flofit and most aftermarket seats bolt right on and they sit as low if not slightly lower than stock seats. And they are recaros.....they are one of the best built and most comfy seats made, the scats are cool but still cheaply made, I pulled scats out of my car.
 
#20 ·
Just be careful with BMW seats. I bought mine because I knew of others who had installed BMW seats, and like a fool, I assumed they'd all be generally the same.

They're not.:loco:

Hence my warning--measure so you know. Mine are off an 88 325is, and they are no where close to made-to-fit.
 
#21 ·
Also be sure to check what they cost to recover, a '68 owner I know bought a set of BMW seats (model?) and found out all the seat pieces were indiv. vs. 1 top, 1 bottom recover and resold them as it would be too $$ to recover. Research model and recover cost.
Jon
 
#23 ·
From what I recall when I did my research, the earlier BMW seats (E21 = '75 - '82) are more or less bolt in for a vintage Mustang. The later ones require a little more work to fit. I was looking for BMW E21, Fox, or Fiero seats for my car and happened to find a set of Fiero seats locally first, so I went that route. Mr Mike's made covers to match my stock upholstery. I'm pretty happy, although I think the Fox route would be been a little more affordable.
 
#24 ·
Fox body ones are great. Easy install, very comfortable. Here are my redesigned ones:

Stan
 
#25 ·
I know this is an old thread, and this subject has been beat to death, but I have a couple of questions. First, I have the opposite problem a lot of you have....I'm 5'7". I own a Fiero too, and just eyeballing everything, I'd need an old Los Angeles phone book to sit on to see over the dash LOL.

My 1970 Mach 1 is pretty much finished...just finishing up the interior. Somewhere along the line, one of its owners put in what appear to be '71-'73 seats. They had ghetto rigged some odd seat tracks so the seats sat up pretty high. I ordered the correct seat tracks for the '70, drilled out the seats and mounted them...and they sit too low for me. I put in about 1" of spacers, and now the height is pretty decent. They aren't bad seats, but I'm exploring options of what to put in it next. My fab skills are decent....front seats don't worry me...but what about the back seat? Has anyone used (successfully) a different back seat setup? Either later model Mustang, or even non Mustang?
 
#28 ·
Copied from a thread on Mustang Owners Club of Great Britain (MOCGB.NET) car owned at the time by Blackstang66

"Found these seats on ebay from a BMW M3 and had them retrimmed in black and grey cow skin.














It's like driving a different car now."

These seats are from an E30 2 door, (4 door version will not tilt forward) ;)
The rear seat had to be cut down in the width.
 
#30 ·
I have the Procar Elite seats and they are a little taller than the buckets that came with the car. For the rear, I purchased the matching Procar seat covers. They weren't advertised for my year but with the help from this forum, I was told they would fit and they did.

Frizlefrak, when I removed the bucket passenger seat, I found this under the rail.

I'm guessing the previous owner's wife was shorter so he raised the seat using these pipes with longer bolts. I'm guessing if you need to raise your seats, you can buy some lumber and cut to length, drill the holes and buy longer grade 8 bolts. Might need to torque it down once in awhile if the seat sinks into the lumber.
 
#33 ·
How much were those seats and did you buy the rails for the seats? Also with the harness, how did you mount them? I'm looking to upgrade my seats as well.
 
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