Things are progressing nicely. I got my seats mocked up and installed. Just need to weld the brackets to the floor, and then put down the sound deadener.
I started with cleaning the old carpet and padding out of the front of the truck.
I started with a pair of buckets out of a Suburban that I bought 3 years ago when I was new to all of this. I have since learned that Suburban seats differ just enough that the '90-'91 Suburban seats worked better for me when I did this swap in my '87. Which leaves me with 2 pairs of '81-'88 Suburban seats. The first pair that I was using for mock up were the first pair I bought 3 years ago. They are pretty beat up and were sitting in my dad's shop collecting dust.
I couldn't get the passenger side to line up the way I thought it should. It just didn't seem right, and without the other one in to compare it with, I wasn't sure.
I then went to get the driver's side seat and turned it upside to down to inspect the brackets and they were bent. I stopped until I could retrieve the buckets from my house that came out of my parts Suburban. They are in much better shape and the brackets were not bent. I retrieved those and started over.
I was able to measure off the back of the cab and the dash to each seat to make sure they were where they needed to be and even.
Once I got both of them in and happy with the placement, I marked the floor where the brackets need to be welded down. I'm not going to drill the hole for the back, inner mount on each seat until the brackets are welded in and I have 3 points solidly mounted. But, I was happy with the way they were sitting.
Now the real work begins. I have always liked the bucket seats in the '92-'94 Suburbans and Blazers. I got a pair off Craigslist for $70.00 to put in. The only bummer is they are blue, so I will have to put covers on them for now. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the seat tracks from the original seats that fit our floors will mount up to the '92-'94 seats with minimal modification.
I didn't take any photos of the mounting of the tracks to the new seats, but they will have to come out to weld the brackets, so I'll snap some then. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with these seats. The front of the seats are the same distance off of the dash, so leg room on both sides stays the same. And in my opinion, these seats are so much more comfortable. The best part was the brackets didn't have to move from the placement with the older seats to the newer seats.
I then moved on to the console mounting. I wasn't happy with the console that came in the '81-'91 Suburbans that I had mounted in my '87 and wanted something different. I had only seen photos of the consoles out of newer trucks and suv's and really liked them. But, I had no idea if they would work in our trucks or not. So, I went to the local yard and poked around and bought 2 consoles. 1 from a Suburban and 1 from a Yukon. The Yukon console is fancier, and will be a long term project to make it work. But the back half of the Suburban console will work in the short term.
It's sitting a little high, but with a little massaging, it will be good. Not only was I pretty happy with this part of the project, but the Finance Director, i.e. my wife, was impressed as well. You can't beat that.
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