lassy

I'll make this short and sweet. The bench seat in my truck was worn out and I wanted some more comfortable seats and a console. I found some Dodge Intrepid bucket seats and newer console from a Ram. With the help of my brother (junk yard digging) and my Dad (helped me fab up the seat brackets) we made this a fun weekend project. Seats ride very nice and I'm extremely happy with the outcome.

Let me know if you have any questions!

More work on the DD (dirty diesel) to come

lassy

More pics:

We used pieces of 2x4 and random wooden shims to position the seat where I wanted it. Once in position, we sketched out some basic brackets with their dimensions. From there, layed out the brackets on some flat steel, cut them out, and test fitted. Once we were happy with the position, we added gussets to each and sprayed with some paint.

lassy

Makes me so happy to have a comfy ride now. Sound deadening, carpet and speakers still to come.

Clampett

Looks great! I've been trying to figure out which seats and console will work best in my standard cab/auto also. Thats looks very good.

CE_TX

Not to sound like a jerk or an ****, mounting those seats on the cab like you have them will not last long. The metal is to thin to support you and the seats. It will crack and split the floor. You need to make brackets that will bolt through the factory mounting holes, the metal is thicker there and it won't crack or split on you. I bought a 89 Dodge Cummins where someone did what you did and it was cracked and spliting on both sides.

The seats and console do look nice though.

wheelieking71

yep, CE is right. there are supports spot-welded to the underside of the floor that run front to back, and support the weight of the seat/driver, seat/passenger. that will deform and or crack the floor.

NJTman

I did something similar to my old 93 I sold last year. I used seats from a "chrysler" van. Man oh, man, those seats were like sitting on a cotton filled cushion. I think chrysler spent all of their R&D money on seat production, vs making their vehicles last.


I never did get around to installing a console, though.

You could put a horizontal channel beneath the two down brackets, and run them into the reinforcement plated holes the others are speaking of. That would help a bit from future metal fatigue.

BTW, Where is that boneyard ? that has to be the cleanest one I've ever seen. You made that picture up on your photoshop software, right ?

lassy

Thanks for all of the comments guys, I didn't even think about the metal being weak in the new mounting locations. I'll def add some reinforcement plates soon. I was so focused on getting them mounted, I sort of had blinders on to anything else.

Yeah, this junk yard is at one of the Pull-a-parts in Atlanta. We have three around the city, and I was definitely impressed at the organization of the yard, friendliness of the staff and efficiency of the check-out procedure. Apparently a lot of the employees act as scouts for hard to find cars/parts. I hear V8s, like out of a Z28/corvette don't last longer than a day. Pull-A-Part also has a great inventory system that you can check on their website so you don't waste a trip out to the yard to find they don't have the vehicle you want to pull from.

Jaybird1962

Nice job looks great. If you ever get some spare time you could install seats in my truck. Want to do that as soon as I find some seats. Great job.

lassy

I'm going to cut out some pieces of sheet metal soon and use some HD adhesive to bond them to the floorboard where my seat bracket are. Hopefully that will distribute the stress over a larger foot print and eliminate the chances of cracking in the floorboard.

dodgenstein

I did something similar on my 91 D250. I plug welded a piece of 16 gauge metal down in several places to reinforce the seating area. Some 60,000 rough miles and no problems. I was going to try panel adhesive the next time I did one.

Erska

Can some of you guys measure how much you have space between the steering wheel and the backrest of the seat?

Because I think all those high seats will give you at least 2 inches less space for tall drivers. I hope I'm wrong tho...

dodgenstein

You are exactly right. There is a protrusion built in the rear cab sheetmetal below the rear window that will interfere with the taller seats. On the stock bench it is just over the seat back. This is really bad if you swap in the factory captain chairs.

Crossy's son

Yea the 92 reg. cab has buckets in it out of a club cab and they are pretty far forward, and sit up quite a bit higher than than the regular cab bench seats. Still comfortable though.

The worst was when i had 95 2nd gen seats in a 93 Reg. cab and I used all the factory 2nd gen brackets and they put you up so high and so far forward you would hit your head on the door when you got in/out. And the seat belts were BARELY long enough, you couldn't even lean forward to change the radio. I think the best method is to mount the seats on the factory 1st gen seat risers.

lassy

As you can see from my pictures, the back of the seat is in contact with the back of the cab. Fortunately for me, I'm not gigantic, only 5'10" 170lbs, so the seats are a perfect fit for me. I scored a cargo tray out of a newer ram and have it behind the seat right now. Makes use of that extra bit of open cab space.