Well, I spent the afternoon browsing in the local pick your part salvage yard. I scored a set of gray leather bucket seats for 43 dollars and some change. Driver seat is power, passenger manual. With the headrests removed I think they will work nicely.



I'm amazed at how much stuff is screwed up in the u pull yards by idiots that don't know how to take a part off. I found a set of really nice gray leather buckets in a chrylser LHS that were full power and heat, and some jerk had torn up the electric drive mechanisms trying to get the seats to move forward so they could get to the rear mounting bolts. They even tried taking out the front seat bolts and bending the seat back trying to break off the the rear mounts. I always carry an 18 volts drill battery and some jumper wires so I can hook up to the seats and check them for operation and move them to where I can get to the mounting bolts.

On another note, I found an automatic floor shifter that was really trick looking and would look good with the interior layout I envision, but it is in a front wheel drive car. Any reason I can't adapt it to work on a brand X 350 turbo. I can only assume that it operates the trans by cable. Anybody ever use one of the shifters from a front wheel drive????????????

Anyway, it was a great afternoon, 70 plus degrees, leisurely checking out all the cars for things that would go well in my build.

 

That's a good tip about the 18 volt battery and I've wondered about the shifter too but ended up buying a Lokar cable shifter. I would think you should be able to make it work you are after all a very good fabricator. How do you set up that battery to work for you, just tape the leads to the battery and alligator clamps?
I'd like to get a set of buckets from a new chev/gmpickup in tan leather but the you picks around here would probably charge an arm and leg. It seems that in the U.S. the wrecking yards are much more reasonable than the ones in my area.

 

My jumper leads have alligator clips on both ends, and I usually expose the seat wires where they come up out of the carpet, strip back the insulation and hook up my leads to the seat wires and battery and cycle the seat through all of it's motions. Works like a champ and moves the seat to position where all the bolts can be removed easily. I have disconnected the drive cables and run the drive cables with my battery drill to get the seats to move when the motors are bad. Only seat I've ever gone to that much trouble on was a corvette seat that had been in a flood and all the motors were locked up. The seats were perfect, but the motors were toast.

 

You would have to wear snowshoes to do that up here today! Sounds like you had a fun one!

 

A junk yard open on Sunday... Only a few are open on Saturday around here...

 

We have pick & pull here in fl. They are 1/2 price on sundays. I was blowed away at the number of folks shoping there on sunday.

 

Andrew were you over to the Express Pull N Save? If so cool.

 

Yep, I gotta stay out of that place. I saw too many things that I'd like to incorporate on my build. I guess that's why my truck isn't finished yet.

 

What were the seats from?
jim

 

They were out of a Chrysler LHS. I've got to go back and check to see the year model. I try to keep a log of the parts that I use so that if I ever have a problem, I'll know what to ask for when trying to get parts. I guess that's one of the problems with building a modified vehicle.......trying to keep up with what parts you've used.

Guess I'll have to pick up that shifter while I'm there. It's only fifteen bucks so it'll be worth a shot at fitting it to my application.

 

nice looking and nice idea about using the battery from the drill..

how thick are the backs on those seats? I picked up a set of F150 buckets with the integrated seat belt, but the back is so thick that they don't really provide any ability to move them back.. I'm long legged and need more room, not less..

the front side of the back is about 3in closer to the steering wheel than the stock bench seat..(with the seat back against the cab back wall)

Sam

 

Nice pick, Drewski, I'm with you on the jerks that don't care about how they remove parts from the "Pull" yards. Sometime I find just what I want and then start to do a removal and find that the parts are either cut up or just busted to get to another part. I guess that is the price we have to pay to get what we want. At least I think I am done picking the "Yards" for awhile. The one I am just about to finish, this Summer, is my last one.

_________________________________________
46 Ford Tudor - Street Rod
48 Ford F1 - Darkside

"Happiness: 3 pedals and a 5 speed"

 

Sam, I took a couple more pictures for you. From a side view the seat backs look thick, but the seats are really contoured.







As you can see the seat back is slightly less than 4 inches. I don't know if that is better than the 150 seat. I know a couple guys that do custom upholstery and they seem to like these particular mopar seats for their their styling and lack of bulk. They seem to look really good in the finished jobs I've seen.

My wife and I are somewhat vertically challenged, so the seat thickness would not be an issue. I did want a seat that didn't sit too high and had a headrest that I could remove since my top is chopped pretty hard and I'll need a slightly lower seating position and I don't want a headrest showing in the back window.




Even more important, I wanted a seat that was comfortable and these feel really good.

 

nice seats!!! don`t see why you can`t use a fwd shifter as long as its the same amount of gates, i`m using a mid 90`s t-bird shifter for my aod

 

I went back a 2 days after I got the seats and got a shifter assembly. I don't see any reason that I can't make it work. I guess I'm just a glutton for punishment since it would be so much easier to just pick up a summit catalog and order a shifter.