Has anyone done a front bench seat conversion from the LHD FZJ? I’m really dying to do it but haven’t seen anyone else attempt or even really talk about it in much theoretical detail.
COMPILED - 80 Series Seat Swap Thread
- Thread starter Box Rocket
- Start date
-
- Tags
- seats
This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.
I don’t have them but I have sat in them. They suck… Seat cushion doesn’t extend far enough to support your legs. Quality feels meh and they aren’t even cheap. Imo save up for sclhlee mans or just find manual cloth 80 seats really not worth wasting your money on those.
I have all the seat movements working, but the heat and ventilation will require more effort. Need an interface or buttons to control, and the right LIN signals (sniffed from a Volvo with the same functions) to make it all work. Its on my list, but there are more fun/pressing things higher up on the priorities.
Fitted a pair of early 2000s Subaru Forester seats into my 80. The Subaru seats were a challenge that I didn't appreciate due to the dissimilar seat rails side to side. Took a fair amount of fiddling to match them up to the 80 mounts. But got it done and am happy with the result. DM me if using similar seats and I can share deets.
For what it's worth, another angle on this whole seat swap discussion is what happens after you get them in — once you've been running aftermarket seats for a few seasons, the OEM seat trim starts looking a lot worse by comparison, and you end up in reupholstery territory anyway. I've done plenty of 80 series seats over the years. The factory vinyl on the older ones — especially the early 90s trucks — holds up reasonably well but the foam underneath is the real problem. It compresses and separates from the backing over time. If you're swapping seats partly because the originals feel dead, consider that before you commit to an aftermarket swap — sometimes pulling the seat covers and replacing just the foam with new density-matched HR foam brings the original back to life for a fraction of the cost and looks completely stock. If you're committed to aftermarket seats, the main thing I see people get wrong is mounting height. 80 series drivers tend to sit quite upright, and a lot of aftermarket performance seats put you lower and more reclined — which feels weird with the stock steering wheel angle and can fatigue you faster on long runs. Always mock it up before committing to welding adapters. The Scheel-Mann VARIO option gets brought up in this thread and they're a genuinely good seat — the foam quality is a cut above most bolt-in alternatives and the bolster shape works for a lot of body types.
Love these! I’m eyeing a pair of seats out of a 2020 XC90, they’re in great shape. I’ve only heard good things about Volvo’s seats. Not sure if S90 and XC90 share the same seat but these look similar to the ones im watching.
Do the seats rub at all anywhere? It seems to be a pretty common issue reading through this thread.
Well, the Subaru seats I retrofitted didn't last long. The seats were fine I just didn't like them. So...
2010 BMW E92 M3 seats are now in and a huge upgrade. Fabbing the brackets to fit the seats to the 80 was quite straightforward. The BMW seat rails are flat on the bottom and in the same plane so the brackets were no big deal.
The electronic part of the project was more of a fun challenge. I know many have done E9x seat swaps before me and there was good intel out there on how to use a cheap 555 timer to essentially act as a CANBUS emulator to keep the seat module ECU awake so the seats can be adjusted. This worked a treat.
The intel I could not find was how to get the seat heaters working as they are designed, which is to use pulsed power as opposed to constant 12 volt. Did some digging and it looked like any PWM (pulse width modulation) controller that had decent amperage support would work. So I ordered a couple different controllers and tested them out. Theory validated. The PWM controllers that supported a 20 amp load end up being roughly the size of a light switch so cleanly integrating them into the dash or center console somewhere was out. I ended up mounting the controllers in a project box that lives behind the center console. Not the most elegant of solutions but the control is easy to reach and my 80 is a 2 seater at this stage of its life so no worries about backseat passenger foot interference.
I'm happy to say after a handful of days everything still seems to be working great and I'm quite happy with the new thrones.
Links:
2010 BMW E92 M3 seats are now in and a huge upgrade. Fabbing the brackets to fit the seats to the 80 was quite straightforward. The BMW seat rails are flat on the bottom and in the same plane so the brackets were no big deal.
The electronic part of the project was more of a fun challenge. I know many have done E9x seat swaps before me and there was good intel out there on how to use a cheap 555 timer to essentially act as a CANBUS emulator to keep the seat module ECU awake so the seats can be adjusted. This worked a treat.
The intel I could not find was how to get the seat heaters working as they are designed, which is to use pulsed power as opposed to constant 12 volt. Did some digging and it looked like any PWM (pulse width modulation) controller that had decent amperage support would work. So I ordered a couple different controllers and tested them out. Theory validated. The PWM controllers that supported a 20 amp load end up being roughly the size of a light switch so cleanly integrating them into the dash or center console somewhere was out. I ended up mounting the controllers in a project box that lives behind the center console. Not the most elegant of solutions but the control is easy to reach and my 80 is a 2 seater at this stage of its life so no worries about backseat passenger foot interference.
I'm happy to say after a handful of days everything still seems to be working great and I'm quite happy with the new thrones.
Links:
Corbeau Trailcats and the 80 series seat mounts.
Drivers side fit great. Holes lined up and the chair is able to slide/recline. Could be maybe a half an inch closer to the center console so the seatbelt can retract easier.
Passenger side is too close to the door and the floor mount will need modified to bring it a little closer to the center console. The mount needs to have the seat sitting at least and inch (maybe more, tbd when I get in there to mod it) closer to the center console.
Drivers side fit great. Holes lined up and the chair is able to slide/recline. Could be maybe a half an inch closer to the center console so the seatbelt can retract easier.
Passenger side is too close to the door and the floor mount will need modified to bring it a little closer to the center console. The mount needs to have the seat sitting at least and inch (maybe more, tbd when I get in there to mod it) closer to the center console.