As some of you may already know I recently purchased my first 60 about two weeks ago. I have been steadily correcting the previous owners "unresolved issues" and I recently came up with a pretty slick solution to one of my truck's glaring faults.
When I purchased the vehicle the drivers seat recline mechanism was busted. The seat back would not lock into position and I was forced to drive the truck like a gangsta. My back was killing me even after short drives because the seat back was not providing any support what so ever.
I did a little research into replacement seats and began looking for a set of BMW seats to go into the cruiser after reading some positive reviews of that swap A trip to the local junk yard proved to be a waste of time and I was not about to pay 150.00 to ship a set of seats through ebay. So I did what any poor soul would do in my situation and I turned to my local craigslist. I replied to two ads parting out Bimmers locally and even called my buddy who runs a BMW shop to see if he had any laying around. No luck. Thats when I noticed a typically poor craigslist ad for a full set of Isuzu Rodeo seats for $150.00. Of course there was no phone number and no pictures. I sent him an email and suprisingly I recieved one back the next day. For no apparent reaseon he told me that he would sell me the seats for $100 if I wanted to come look at them
(No need to negotiate, cool). Via text we agreed to meet up, a shady side of town I might add, so I grabbed my glock and $100 and went to meet the seller. (You can never be to careful nowadays). I took the broken seat from the cruiser with me for comparison. We met up and needless to say for the low, low bargain price of $100.00 I was the proud owner of the entire interior out of a 2002 Isuzu Rodeo. I got both front seats, the split folding rear bench and a center console. They were a little dirty but with the exception of the driver side headrest free of damage. They were power which I was not looking for but dimensionally they were very close to the factory cruiser seats.
When I got home I set about putting them in the truck. The great thing about this swap is it is almost a direct bolt in. In the front I wallowed the Rodeo mounting holes out with an angled step drill bit and then I hammered the front tabs of the seat braket from a 45 degree angle to an almost 90 degree angle similar to the stock cruiser seat. The rear mounts on the seat were wallowed out a little more sevearly then the fronts but never the less all modifications were done with a cordless drill and a hammer. I bolted the seat in for a test fit before pulling it back out to spray a little black paint on the wallowed out holes.
I then set about running the power seat wiring. For now they are hooked up to an amp wire that I had laying around my garage from a previous project. They are fused and always on at this point. I will be wiring up an extra fuse block under the hood that I recently purchased from a local marine store in the near future but I am waiting on that till I finish my TBI conversion (I will do a seperate write up on that in the future). I cut out the stock Isuzu connectors under the seats and replaced them with a two wire trailer extension that I got from the local advance for $2.80 each.
I have a bunch of pictures on my camera at home that I will add to this thread tommorow. I took them as I was doing the install to document for anyone else looking to change out their seats..Here are the two Ipictures I took with my phone..
