Finally got around to mounting these buckets

[pritch]

I picked up these buckets a couple years ago, just because they were in really good shape and they were only 15 bucks each. They came out of a '67 Sportman Van.



I didn't really know what I was going to do with them, but the seat in my green '68 was in such bad shape I had to do something. I decided to put them in the green truck, but I couldn't figure out a good way to mount them. I studied the situation at length and came up with this.

I took my really junky bench seat and stripped off all the old foam and what was left of the cover and cut out all the springs until I was left with this:


I wanted these seats to be a little farther back and a little lower than the bench, so more surgery. I drilled out the rivets that held on the rear seat-to-slider mounts then welded a piece of 1"X1.5" steel tube, then welded the sliders to this (helpful hint-don't make these welds until you're sure the sliders are in the right place) The front mount is bolted as normal.



I cut off the little fin or whatever that runs around the seat frame, but that cut off the spot-welds, so I re-spot welded it back together.



They are hard to see, but I welded a 2" long 1.5"X1.5" angle iron to mount the seats to.



More or less finished. I had to raise the rear of the seat by another inch, so for right now I think I'm going to add another piece of the tube steel, but that's for next weekend. This was more of a trial run to see if it would work or not. I like how the seats feel, and I have lots more belly room.



I have another bench seat bottom, so now I can see what needs to happen to make it better, but it works for now and is a vast improvement over what I had.