new bucket seats any advice on install?

[theCure]

went to the junk yard this morn and picked up a set of bucket seats from a Tahoe.....im sure these arent direct bolt in so any advice would help as i have never installed seats before.

thanks,
jon

[TonyJohnson]

Those look great and the integrated seatbelts will work nicely. Those are exactly what I'll try to find for mine. Did youi grab the harness? It's hard to see what's under those. It might be as simple as drilling four holes and bolting them in. but you might have to make a simple box platform for them. I've seen simple frames made with box tubing and I've seen wood. Just depends on what you feel comfortable working with.

[theCure]

no didnt grab a harness they had these sitting in a building they dont use anymore and just about forgot they were there......heh, but im attaching a picture maybe you can make out the 500 different things thats under there....heh

[TonyJohnson]

Holy snikeys... I don't think a submarine has that many parts... lol.

Those mounts are threaded, so it looks like bolting a piece of angle iron to each side would be easy. Then you could adapt off the other side of the angle almost any way you want. As far as hooking up all that electric, I'd still price a harness... otherwise, I'd just bolt'em when they felt good and leave them. I get they have heaters in them, as well.

[theCure]

yeh they have heaters, but no clue on making them work, dont see no switch on the sides for turning them on, but i dont i would ever use them anyways.....only thing id really care about making work is having the seats move up down and possibly forward and backwards, since the misses is putting her foot down about wanting to drive it "eventually" hahaha

[TonyJohnson]

The heaters are usually switched at the dash (don't ask me why...) I had some audi seats that were that way. Getting the motors to work, should be just getting juice to them. You could use a battery and jumper leads to figure it out before you put them in the car (if you don't have a schematic.) Hell, I can never decipher the modern schematics, anyway...

[Blue85]

Chevy puts the heated seat switches in the door panels, on my 01 chevy seats, i had to feed power to the 12? gauge orange(power) and black (ground) wires.

[Palf70Step]

You'll need to brace up the floor boards allot to have the seats safely mounted in our trucks. You can check with YukonJack on how he did them in his 69. I could not find the thread with th pictures of his install.

The only other thing is they take up a lot of interior space. Hopefully your are not real tall or "big-boned" as you will be way short on leg room. I thought about them for mine, but I am over 6' so hey made it uncomfortable for me to get in and sit in the truck.

[theCure]

yeh as far as leg room and stuff im not to worried about it as im 5ft 10 and 150lbs so should have plenty of room, but i checked with a local uphostlery guy and i might just let him install them for $100, but he said he cant wire them though, but i looked at an 85 chevy he just put newer seats in and he did a real good job

[motopatzo]

I would definately brace up the floor boards, especially having the seat belts integral. I would run 2 strips of 1/4 inch flat bar or angle iron parallel to each other under the floor boards of each seat. Yikes! Rememeber when seats were pretty basic

[brian10048]

I have an identical set of seats for my truck. Haven't installed them yet, but I tried hooking power up to them, but didn't get them to move. I also read that the heated seats are more complicated to wire the motors and it involves a little more than power and ground. I haven't investigated further, but if you are able to get them working, I'd like to know how.

[theCure]

thanks for the info guys and i'll post pics and everything when i get it in, but now i have another question haha....never ends.....what color to do with the rest of the interior? the misses wants me to go with black carpet, black door panels and black dash pad, but i dont see that much black going with the gray seats......im thinking gray dash, gray carpet and either gray or chrome door panels.....what does everybody else think will look good?

[dan42]

Out of curiousity, did you check out how high they are in the truck? The newer bench seats, at least for me, (6'0") are too high, I have to stoop over to look out the window.

[theCure]

no havent checked as i cant take the bench seat out til i get ready for the install as its my daily driver now since my cadillac got totalled out thursday, but i dont think it will be to bad as im a little shorter and a skrawny guy heh....id actually prefer the seats to be a little lower than stock though, but i dunno....might do some measuring and try to get a idea of where it will be and how high up i will be

[paaw]

hey theCure what part of mississippi are you from

[theCure]

good ole pearl by jackson

[jeffspower]

Mine aren't bolted in yet, but are going in as pictured. Since both of mine are power seats, they sit down low enough for me. They do crowd you forward some. They sit on the floor pretty nice as pictured. I'll just drill holes & add reinforcement plates underneath. The gas tank will have to come out (which I planned on doing anyway) so the center jumpseat's backrest/ storage caddy can swing up. You could avoid this by moving the seats/ center jumpseat forward a little and making perches for the forward mounting points, but doing so makes the seat track stick out when the seat is all the way back, and you catch your heel on it getting in & out. I ran my seats temporarily with 2 jumper wires, a power & ground is all it takes for all the movements to work. I have a tilt column i'll use & do the slide- in trick to free up some room.

[paaw]

my wife is from vicksburg, and i am from outside of tupelo been to pearl and jackson quite a few times

[theCure]

cool.....im hoping to visit my wifes hometown soon hahaha.....i got a los angeles girl, never been there, but guess i will be within a year and jeffspower thats looking pretty good and thanks for the info the only thing (that i see alot of people on here doing) that i really dont want to mess with is moving the gas tank at least not right now anyways, but eventually plan on it, just kinda want to save that til one of the last things. dunno why....

[5150]

I have a set out of a 2000 fullsize in mine. I placed the seats in and marked the holes. Put some 20 inch 1/4 inch thick steel underneath the floorboard and used grade 8 3/8 bolts, nuts, and lock washers.

By the way, if you don't mind me asking. What did you give for those?

[TonyJohnson]

Hey yellow69, your "My Truck" link is broken. just FYI... I wanted to go see those seats.

[5150]

okay, try it now

[GMan69]

Jon,
Now I know why you were'nt at the car show yesterday. Nice find on the seats.

[theCure]

yeh i was trying to go to it, BUT didnt want to go before i got my new bumper on, and it took a little longer than expected since its always ONE bolt that wants to be a pain in the a**, but hopefully i can make it out to the one in byram next month or if theres one that pops up sooner than that one.....just gonna be a close call on anything since my wifey is due june 1st with our baby girl....heh.....she could explode any minute now....

[theCure]

finally got around to pulling the old seat and at the moment have the new ones just sitting in......my drill is missing in action anybody want to help? hahaha anyways heres a peek....its a little uncomfortable sitting in it since i have been able to get power to them yet to adjust em....