New Seats! (PT-Cruiser) *Easy*

[gregnash]

Alright... finally looks at this thread enough times in the last couple weeks, headed to the local PnP on sunday to check out the one PT Cruiser (2007) that they have and possibly grab seats (if they are correct color). If not then I am headed to Sparks (45mins) to check theirs out and grab. @HemiAlex

 

[gregnash]

Well went and did my recon and grab local PnP had two that were in horrible shape so took the chance and ran to Sparks (45 mins away) and they had three. All were in decent shape but the one 05 with leather and butt warmers (but manual seats) had the seams splitting already so I went with the 07 cloth.

Looks like after 05 they switched the mount style to T45 mounting bolts. Bit of a bitch to get to the 13mm nuts without removing the mounting brackets. So take a small breaker bar and a t45 bit (or a larger ratchet). Other than that it just takes time to remove them with all the connectors.

Here are mine, cloth manual from an 07. Will use the carpet shampoo'r with the furniture attachment to clean them. Just waiting on my welder to get here to figure out the mounting setup.

 

[gregnash]

So working on my 07 seats and the bolt pattern is approximately 13 3/4" center to center, if I remember correctly for the front on the stock Land Cruiser seats, they are 15 1/4" (already cut my brackets off) so that is a different of 1 1/2" on mine. Of course I will remeasure the drivers seats when I get them but I am making small adapter plates out of 1/8" flat bar stock (1 1/2" wide by 1/8" thick) that I had laying around. I have the first one on and basically just used it as a mounting point adapter so the seats would not lean to one side.

Thinking that on the outside of the seat I will mount up directly to the bolts on the bottom of my PT Cruiser seats but with the inside (closest to the center console) I will build a bit of an extra wide mount. Thinking I may run and grab another piece of 2 1/2" wide bar stock to make what I want... trying to come up with it.

 

[DFXR]

You said you have a welder on the way. How about making a flat "U" out of flat bar that has one set of holes to bolt it to the original mounts, and another set of holes to bolt to the seats? Does that make sense?

 

[gregnash]

You said you have a welder on the way. How about making a flat "U" out of flat bar that has one set of holes to bolt it to the original mounts, and another set of holes to bolt to the seats? Does that make sense?

Yeah that is what I was thinking about last night after I closed down (having a 3mo old puppy to manage while trying to play in the garage when it is 27* out is always interesting). I only had a small piece of 1 1/2" bar stock so I was just basically playing with ideas last night.. What I will do today is grab another piece of the 1 1/2" wide and 3" wide. Then do something similar to what you are talking about..

 

[DFXR]

Do the PT seats normally mount on a flat floor, or is a PT Cruiser floor kinda weird like an '85 cruiser floor (raised and angled mounts). If it's flat, look for my BMW seats thread and you basically just make a new flat place for the PT seats to mount.

 

[gregnash]

The seats are actually mounted to a bracket that sets them up off the floor, however floor is flat. Certain ones had a drawer system under the seats (one I pulled from did not). They basically mount onto a small bracket system that then mounts to "legs" coming up from the floorboard.

 

[gregnash]

So last night was a bit of a learning experience for me. Lots of planning and looking at things. Got the inside plate adapter done with 3" wide 1/8" steel which worked out perfectly.
Untitled by Greg Fisicaro, on Flickr
Piece is 14 1/2" long with first hole from front being cut at 1/2" in from edge. Believe bolt holes are all 5/8" which allows me a little wiggle room. Bolts front and back are spaced 2" from center to center.
First bolt to last bolt is spaced at 13 5/8" center to center (as best I could measure).
Center of PT Cruiser bolt line to Land Cruiser bolt line is exactly 1 1/2" (hence the 3" wide plate) and worked out perfectly on a test fit last night.
Untitled by Greg Fisicaro, on Flickr
As you can see that cutout in the bracket is necessary as the way that my adjuster for the rails mounts to each side, there is a bracket that is welded to the inside rail that would not allow it to mount flush. No worries, just cut to match and it was all good. That was purely eyeballing it on the table.

Where I ran into an issue is how I mounted the front most leg of the stock bracket.
You can see here that I mounted it by only using the front most PT bolt hole. This shifted everything forward causing me to not be able to use the rear mounting bracket with any of the PT bolts.
Untitled by Greg Fisicaro, on Flickr

Untitled by Greg Fisicaro, on Flickr

Going to have to adjust that for the drivers side once I get to that one. But for passenger I am not worried. I just have to build a bracket that will attach to the stock foot allowing me to mount. I never measured mounting distance which was one of my mistakes.

NOTE: If you are doing this mod, be sure that for the front stock LC feet that you use the stock PT bolts as much as possible. This will allow you to get at least one bolt into the rear LC feet.

 

[gregnash]

Front foot.. see how I only used one bolt... drill the foot bracket as necessary to use both PT bolts.
Untitled by Greg Fisicaro, on Flickr

Otherwise you have to deal with this..
Untitled by Greg Fisicaro, on Flickr

 

[DFXR]

yer almost there... I probably put in/took out my driver's seat 20 times before it was done. The pass side once or twice b/c the bracket was the same.

If you're going to prime + paint the new mounts, do it right away. I got both sides fabbed and installed over one long day, drove it home, and still haven't gotten around to pulling everything out for painting. Four years ago?

 

[gregnash]

Yup finished up the passenger side yesterday early evening and primed/painted all the brackets. That seat will be installed tonight. I was smart enough to cut two 3" wide brackets and then drill through the first and the second at the same time so I have the mounting holes set. Now just have to install the seat heater in the drivers side (started that last night) and then work on the mounts.

Plan is to mess with the outside feet (not the 3" wide bracket) to get proper fitting for those to not replicate same issue with passenger side. Still attempting to dial in the new welder but so far has been working great. Plan is to get it buttoned up for the most part tonight (probably just have prime/paint the brackets) and then on to other projects while I still have the garage.

 

[gregnash]

And they are in!!!! And holy crap are they tall! I am 6' and I am now only a few inches from the ceiling!!
First ride will be tomorrow then figuring out the wiring for the butt warmers! Oh yeah and Louie approves!

 

[DFXR]

Sweet!

Mine are tall too. It's a trade-off... much comfort, but no big hair allowed

 

[FJ40Jim]

I like my tall seats, easier to see over the frt edge of the hood when wheeling.

 

[JamesR]

Looks very nice. I'm 6'1", ask Louie if he thinks they would work for me.
Thanks.

 

[gregnash]

Looks very nice. I'm 6'1", ask Louie if he thinks they would work for me.
Thanks.

I'm 6' and I have a few inches (4ish) between the top of my head and the roof. Took the first real ride in it today, was doing other tasks, and they feel great. Now I am working on figuring out the wiring path for the butt warmers. Think I may pull them out and pull the carpet up to run everything underneath near the tunnel on the passenger side....

 

[JamesR]

Thanks for the info.

 

[gregnash]

Here's the thing, the angles that the stock mounts are at are not hard.. You could probably make something that would help lower the seats a little if you wanted to spend the time fabbing brackets. However, this works well for me and they are comfy.

 

[1stchair]

A bit of a thread revival here. Contemplating this seat swap for my 60, and wondering if the rear seats are worth even considering for swapping into the (Land) Cruiser, or are they so different that it's not worth grabbing them with the fronts. Has anyone tried lining them up?

 

[jakobpeyerl]

Thanks for the writeup!

I finally got tired of having my rear end pummeled by errant springs, and the foam was starting to leak out of the drivers seat, so I went to my nearest pick-n-pull (luckily there are two here in calgary) and after looking through a couple PT's that were in miserable shape, I found a 2003 with black(ish) cloth seats, in nearly showroom condition. no scratches, tears, or even stains. I'm shocked.

$83 Canadian shillings later, I had two PT cruiser seats in my trunk and for good measure I grabbed some of the adjustable headrests out of a nearby Camry in the lot. they don't match perfectly but they're less intrusive than the PT headrests were, and theyre also adjustable.

Took me maybe 3 hours to get the old seat mounts drilled out, and I bolted on the new seats. a little bit of persuasion and they fit great. One thing I will note is; I have a 62 series centre console, and because the passenger seat has an arm rest, the centre console won't open fully - so, beware of that.

Now I just have to figure out how I'll get my heated seat pads installed in these seats...