floor pan replacement- what are you doing about the seat mount re-inforcements?

'96 Country...typical floor pan rust. In the last throws of welding/patching floor pans in. When getting the old floors out, I destroyed my front seat reinforcements- the upside down 'U' channel that the 2 front seat mounts bolt into.
These have been discontinued and are no longer available- anywhere.

I know I'm not the only one that has run into this problem. What have other XJ'rs done to work around this?

Right now I'm fab'ing some make-shift brackets from 2" angle iron and not too happy with my results...

I've cut that part of the floor out of an XJ that still had good floors before. I'd head to a junkyard or look for a Craigslist part out.

Have you seen how light the stock metal is? Just make some new ones and weld them in.

jonzer12 said:

Have you seen how light the stock metal is? Just make some new ones and weld them in.

Click to expand...

Yeah they appear to be 16 gauge, but I don't have a brake -or a vice to bend it straight...

citRon said:

Yeah they appear to be 16 gauge, but I don't have a brake -or a vice to bend it straight...

Click to expand...

If you have a work bench or table you can beat on a bit, you can make a poor man's brake.

Get a piece of angle iron and 2 c-clamps. Then put the metal on your table, put the piece of angle over it and clamp it down to the table. You can hammer the piece of metal to your desired shape. It's crude, but its about the same as doing it in a vice, but wider, and only costs about $15 to put together, and when you are done, you still have 2 good c-clamps.

thanks- that is sorta what I had 'built' in my mind to bend if I needed to...I have a sheet of 16g big enough to make the driver's side I believe, so I might just try it. My angle iron 'L' brackets leave much to be desired, and I don't know that I can trust them to hold up. I would hate to get everything done, seam sealed and carpet and padding put back in just to hear a 'snap' or feel the recognizable rocking chair effect the first time I take a corner...
I'm handicapped, though, as I am working with a POS Harbor Freight flux core welder to do everything; but that's a whole different problem.
I never thought seat mount brackets would be the biggest hurdle in this project!