Scott, Are you celebrating? Is the cab bolted home? When you get a chance would you measure your seat position for me? I am holding final weld of the tubular seat frame. My cab isn't going on the chassis just yet, however, the only remaining metal work on the cab is fitting up and welding in shoulder harness supports.

 

I am SOOOO very celebrating. Sent you a pm also, but will add here too. We got the whole body onto the chassis and dang it looks like a truck again!!! I took Friday off work to assemble the bed wood, front clip, door hinges, etc, and finally turned the shop lights out at 3 A.M. Saturday morning. Back at it again at 7:30 A.M. to get everything ready for my helpers who arrived at 10. It was a one man episode of Overhaulin' that's for sure. Needless to say, after that marathon session I crashed most of the day sunday and didn't get the seats in. I will tonight though, and post measurements first thing in the morning. I'm going to do a separate post in a few days after the film gets developed to show my progress pics.

Scott

 

Scott,

Congratulations!!!! That has got to be a great feeling! I can't wait to see the pics of your marathon weekend.

Do you jaws hurt from all of the smiling??

Take care,
Bobby

 

Scott,

CONGRATULATIONS! What a feeling!

 

Ok, I have some measurments and a picture of the seat installed too. I just realized that I forgot to measure the depth of the bracket front to back, but the top frame is the width of the mounting points on the seats front to back, and the bottom frame is bolted directly to the stock cage nuts the original seat was, so you can probably get that measurement on your rig or I can get it again tonight (I could have sworn I measured everything!). Anyway, here's the diagram:


And here it is with the seat installed:


Let me know if this helps or if it causes more confusion - I'm good at the confusing part.

 

Scott123 you need to market that seat frame.I would for sure buy one.

 

Wayne, I have definitely thought about doing it just for the heck of it. When I get the whole truck finished up in the next month or so I may try to make another seat frame just to see what it'd sell for on ebay.

 

Well let me know when you do.

 

Scott, Looking good. Thanks for the measurements. I am very close to your measurements. I think that I tilt back just a little more than you do. The front of my seat is also 16 inches. I am going to final weld it.

 

Scott
That is a nice piece of work.

You saved this Ol' Man a whole bunch of head aches.

 

I forgot to mention too that the seat bottom itself has some tilt back in it as well. Even though the frame is around a 4 degree tilt, putting my gauge on the seat it is close to 12 degrees (including the 4 from the frame). I don't know if it's just been so long that I'm so happy to be sitting in it or what, but it actually feels perfect for my build, 5' 10". And with the less cushion in the back, along with the fuel tank moved under the frame, I can put the seat further back and there's actually leg room in the cab now.

One other thing, the front side to side bar on the upper frame is not butted flat up against the side pieces, it's actually twisted some, with the side bars notched to accept it at a different angle. That was done because the front mounts for these particular seats are at a different angle--just in case anyone tries to weld it all together first only to discover that.

 

Scott
Nice job. My 48 has a slight "crown" in the floorboards. Not sure about a 51 but would imagine it is crowned as well. How did you accomodate this issue? Or is a 51 flat. Sorry if I missed this discussion earlier.

Tim

 

51 has that crown too and I left that out of the description, sorry bout that. I laid the front bar across the crown, and cut some extra square tube to fit right where the bolt holes are. It is sort of a spacer, and rather than leave the bottom end with sharp edges, I welded a fill piece of 16 gauge sheet steel there, and drilled the hole for the bolt through it too. The square tube just lightly rests on the middle of the crown, it's main support is through these two spacers. Terrible picture blown up but this is where they are:


Scott

 

I made my frame very much like Scott. The only difference is that I did not weld in a lower front bar. Instead to catch the factory seat bolt holes (I used all of the original locations), I welded "L" clips to the sides of the lower fore and aft runners. So I have the runners fore and aft, short uprights like scott and the upper rectangle that the seat frame bolts to. One of these days I will get a digital camera and post pix. Thanks for the idea Scott.

 

I used the original seat frame to mount my Escort buckets. It was very easy and straight forward with very little fabrication involved. If I remember right, it only took an evening to do. Looks good Scott.

hotrod48