Front seats to replace rear bench

I got a corbeau baja SS driver's seat for christmas. Eventually, i'll get one for the passenger side as well. I was thinking about what to do with the stock front seat. Doubt anyone will buy it, right now it makes a nice recliner in my college apartment.

Anyhow, i know a lot of people take the rear bench out, some build tool boxes, others put captain seats back there. Does anyone know if the stock front seats could bolt up without having to make any adapter plates? I would just take the rear bench out and throw the front seat back there to find out, but i'm not ready to do that, as I only have one seat. Anyone have pictures of this? Lastly, will the front seats be too tall, or interfere in any other way? I think the seatbelts could cause a problem but i think maybe they might work alright. What do you guys think?

Kenny

No problem!
more pics

Did you make your corbeau so you could flip it foward? thats pimp.

I think i need to clarify. I mean using the stock front XJ seats after they have been replaced by Corbeaus, in place of the rear bench seat, to have 4 bucket seats instead of 2 buckets and 1 bench.

its been done but you will need to mod the seat bracket easy to do and just use 2x2 angle instead.search for rear buckets

I put matercrafts up front. When I copped and caged the XJ, I put the fronts in the rear. Had to swap them, Drivers on the pass rear etc. It took a bit of fab'ing to get them to sit level.
One thing that came out nice is they are set in from the fronts. Rear passengers can see really well.
As to the belts. When I installed the cage, the shoulder mount point went on the C pillar bar. Other attachment points stayed the same, so I think the stock locations will hold up fine.





http://www.xjsrule.com/Daffy/index1.html

yeah, i see what you are saying about inboarding the rear seats a little. I saw your other post on this. I wont have to push them in because i dont have a cage. I like the idea of giving the rear passengers a good forward view, but i think i would rather separate them and build a console in the middle or some other type of storage. Also, i like being able to see between them to the rear cus this is my daily driver.

Could you elaborate on your mounting a little bit? Maybe some pictures would help. Also, how is the rear leg room with the buckets? Thanks for the help.

kenny

The rear deck of the XJ slopes downward just past the rear shock mounting points. And the front ledge for the rear bench is quite a bit lower than the rear deck. And the seat does not span from the front ledge all the way to the level area of the rear deck. So I had to fab an angle bracket that would transition from the 40 degree down to a horizontal attachment point for the rear of the seat. Not too hard, just time consuming. Also you need to reinforce the floor where the new bracket will attach.
For the front I built up the front ledge for the bench. It's pretty thin sheet metal and I didn't like the idea of it alone holding the front of the seat in place. I plated it with 3/16 flat plate on the inside and used this new vertical support to support the horizontal mounting point for the front of the seat rail.

The hardest part was getting access for all the nuts and bolts. It's tight back in there. one side I bolted and then I got smart and pulled out the welder for the other side. (Welded the mounting plates and reinforcements, Not the seats)

Pull the seat, pull the carpet and you'll immediately see what I mean about the slope and the issue of mounting the rear of the buckets.

Good Luck

Yeah, i knew there was a slope to it. Didnt realize it was that much though. I cant weld, so i think when i'm ready to do it, i'll bolt a plate to the inside for support, and then somehow make a bracket to raise the front of the seat up even with the rear. how much did you have to raise the front seat mounts over the front edge? do you have any pics of your brackets?

Bump