bucket conversion and console

[78chevstepside]

bought buckets and a console out of a suburban for 100 dollars. Got the brackets also. seems they need some slight mods to fit.
a winter project recover in black leather and red around the edges. going to fill in the console cracks and paint to match. The arm rest may need to go because of clearance to door.

[J Knight]

You will need a couple of seat perches and console mount out of a burb and mount them like these it should make installing those seats alot easier.

[78chevstepside]

great pics I have the front brackets .I can make the rear brackets by looking at what you have in the pictures, thanks you saved me some time.

[Rich84]

I am getting ready to do this as well...Gonna keep my eye on this thread.

I think the rear brackets have to be bent to follow the contour of the floor.

Idiot that I am , I forgot to get the bracket for the console..Doesn't look like it would be to bad to fab one up out of some angle stock.

One question I have is I always see these buckets with armrests on both sides, what vehicles did they come out of? I took mine out of an 85 suburban and it only has armrests on the inside.

[mopar346]

You also may want to put a re-enforcement plate under the cab were the rear bracket mounts. It is common on cars with bench seats to not have the re-enforcement put in and it will tear the floor over time. looks like the truck has a more sustantial bracket but I woudl still consider it. the front appears to mount to the origianl seat hole on the outside so it will be fine but the inside would probably need re-enforcing as well.

Anyone know if the factory bucket trucks/suburbans have the re-enforcement pad I am talking about?

[78chevstepside]

I welded in the front bracket . I fabricated brackets for the back and welded them to the floor. Good note about needing backing reinforcement . I had a 89 seat (above pic) It was welded to the floor with tubing spacers. I had to weld up holes upon removing. Thinks welding both sides of the bracket will insure seat will never work loose.Also the armrests are going away on at least the drivers side for clearance reasons.

[Skunksmash]

Armrests will clear the doors the burbs are the same width. And you'll want to add some 4" spacers for the console to sit on if you want it to be like a modern truck and not feel like its way down there out of reach.

[78chevstepside]

I got everything back together. Decided against leather. Had trouble getting black paint sticking to the console. I cleaned and prepped and prepped. So i kept the red everything else . Added red to the black seats. New rug and sound proofing . covered the rear of the cab with a real thin board painted black with sound proofing behind that. need black seatbelts. Having trouble finding gm. may need to buy new.

[78chevstepside]

Posted via Mobile Device. Interior is done except seatbelts. I got the sem paint to work well after using the sand free and leather prep and heating my work area. I changed the red to black and added headliner and trim from u- pull-it. My truck didnt come stock the way The raider Headliner may be a bit over the top. Black seatbelt are a challenge to find
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[DirtyLarry]

Looks great! No armrests? You can’t beat Suburban buckets and that SEM paint works great! Did the same to mine a few years ago. Mine were even the same color as yours.

One thing I don’t like about these old center consoles is the hard plastic where stuff in the tray and pop cans in the holders rattle like crazy. Been thinking about spraying the cup holder area with Plasti Dip just to try to make it quieter. Junk in the center consoles of new trucks don’t rattle and make so much noise, there has to be a way to make these old ones quieter.

90 Suburban donor


After reupholstery

[KrazyRay]

Those seats look great! Did you use the perches for the inside tracks?

[DirtyLarry]

Originally Posted by KrazyRay

Those seats look great! Did you use the perches for the inside tracks?

Me? No, I used a couple Hi-Lift jack mounting brackets that I had lying around. They were practically a spot on clone to the factory bracket and worked great. Much easier than cutting brackets out of donor vehicle at the junk yard too.

[Rich84]

Very true about the rattling of stuff in the console..Drives me crazy sometimes.
Did you raise it or keep it on the floor??
What did you do with the back wall of the cab??

[78chevstepside]

I covered the back of the cab in thin boarding painted black. I attached studs for mounting. For mounting the console I welded studs to the floor. A lot easier to install and remove. dirtylarry looks very nice like the two tone
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[motornut]

kinda a swap,
89 burb buckets and console for the 78 jimmy
just drilled new holes
love the arm rests,kinda keep you in the seat...
yup the change rattles drive me nuts in the 79
sounds terrible in some driving vids
the inner front seat mount bolt, holds up the mufflers lol

[dieseldawg142]

yup, stuff rattling in the console is ANNOYING! my wife's envoy has rubber inserts in the cubby's, expounding on the idea, i cut up an old bike inner tube & glued it into the cubby's on my '85. sanity is back!

[motornut]

Originally Posted by dieseldawg142

yup, stuff rattling in the console is ANNOYING! my wife's envoy has rubber inserts in the cubby's, expounding on the idea, i cut up an old bike inner tube & glued it into the cubby's on my '85. sanity is back!

good idea
i wanted to make some compartments

[78chevstepside]

found some black seatbelts at a u pull-it. It as been a real challenge

[Rich84]

If the snow keeps melting maybe I can find some too..I have gray ones out of a suburban they don't fit too well in the pickup.
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[ivorton74]

that looks great man...I wanna get me some burb seat for mine. i'll be on the look out...maybe ill find a deal somewhere

[78chevstepside]

Posted via Mobile Device my carpet for the doors arrived . The paint on the doors was rough . The colors is not a match but not bad . Anything was better then the red . The interior is complete
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[MalibuSSwagon]

Those seats look great, I can understand why you ditched the armrests since they sit too low to be useful anyways.

I just picked up gray 89 Sub buckets this week and installed them. Far better than all of the previous seats that have been installed in the truck. Seems odd to me that the factory put the recline knobs on the inside facing the console. Is that correct?

Also, did you guys with rattling consoles not get the felt covered cardboard lining that goes in the console? Mine came with a rather clean one.

[motornut]

Originally Posted by MalibuSSwagon

Those seats look great, I can understand why you ditched the armrests since they sit too low to be useful anyways.

I just picked up gray 89 Sub buckets this week and installed them. Far better than all of the previous seats that have been installed in the truck. Seems odd to me that the factory put the recline knobs on the inside facing the console. Is that correct?

Also, did you guys with rattling consoles not get the felt covered cardboard lining that goes in the console? Mine came with a rather clean one.

I've tried 89 recliners both ways,(changes the wear patterns too) better to be able to do it from outside( in the jimmy) I found
no felt here
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[Gates72ss]

ran similar setup in my lifted 84 ...

[Space Monkey]

What's the overhead console and light set up from? That's awesome.