I also have some spare bucket seats that might be useable once I have the appropriate rails on hand. They may or may not work. Either way, I'll have a bunch more options available to me at that point.

Why not just harvest the rails at the junkyard and leave the seats behind for dead? I suspect they'll charge me the same $10 regardless, so I might as well bring it all home and maybe even use the "beat" Bronco seats (for example) until I get something better. I also have no idea how easy the rails are removed from the seats.

One last question, sorta related... I presume there's no bench seat that has an adjustable seat-back angle, yes? More than anything, the thing that's driving me to search out new seats is the upright position of the bench seat. It just doesn't agree with my back at all.

 

A follow-up question relating to using the Bronco bucket seats in a '91 F150.... Some things I'm reading seem to indicate there was a change in the mounting of the Bronco seats starting in '91. (i.e. I'm seeing reference to Bronco seats being cross-compatible in years '82 - '90.)

Any idea what the story might be here? Do I need only '91 - '96 Bronco seats?

 

short answer is ALL of the seats will fit with minimal work, and for everyones informaion i had a 1991 super cab with a cloth(velour) back seat

 

Will an extended cab front seat (with its swing forward passenger's side seat) fit a regular or crew cab? Might be handy........

 

i put a '96 super cab - the full bench/full bottom/split back into my 93 reg cab.direct fit.had to grab the top of the head rests once it was installed and pull them to tweak them back away from the rear window.took like 10 secs per side.put a cheap seat cover meant for a full back on it,but it still tips enough on one side to get back behind either side, without asking passenger/driver to lean forward for ya.

 

I believe the answer is "yes", but you'll need to drill three new holes for each seat. Bear in mind, you were going to need to drill two new holes regardless for the two inner mount locations (which don't otherwise exist on a truck originally fitted with a bench seat).

What I discovered from my junkyard visit the other day is that the Bronco and Extended Cab bucket seats are likely the same. If you think about it, that makes sense - with either application you need better clearance to get past the front seats into the back.

But if someone could confirm this that would be helpful. Here's the front to back dimensions of the mounting points for the '94 Bronco driver seat I pulled.
Outer: 11.125"
Inner: 11.5"

Just to clarify, these are the mounting points where the tracks mount to the floor. As you can see, it's not quite symmetrical, and the front mounting pads are angled to match the floor. The angles are the same between all the bodies, and that's the important part when transferring seats from one truck to another - just makes it a small matter of drilling some new holes.

BTW, as an additional data-point, the front to back mounting point dimensions for the regular cab bench seat is 15.5".

 

This auction seems to confirm what I suggested above....

80-96 FORD BRONCO F150 EXTENED CAB FRONT BUCKET SEATS | eBay

80-96 FORD BRONCO F150 EXTENED CAB FRONT BUCKET SEATS

 

The seats them selves are the same but NOT the frames. Just because SOMEONE on Ebay says they are the same does NOT make them the same.
Hell they are saying the seats are the same from 80-96, but they are NOT

 

I now have a set of tracks (only) from a '94 Bronco as well as seats w/ tracks from a '94 Extended Cab. The tracks are identical. In fact, I used the tracks from the Bronco as a template for drilling holes in the floor and then mounted the seats without issue.

Well, some issues, but not related to any difference in the tracks. The contours of the driver side floor matches just fine, but not so much on the passenger side. Most notable is the inner forward mounting area where the pan need some "re-engineering".

Overall, the bucket seats do sit higher than the bench, but not impossibly so. I feel more like I'm driving a Peterbilt now.

It does make me wonder if the floorpans changed a bit starting in '92, or is it just a difference between the regular and extended cabs?

 

you guys are reading waay too much into this. also when i had my 1991 supercab, i used 87 bronco bucket frames on my f150 floor for my econline club wagon seats,,, only had todrill the inners, regardless, ford never really changed floor pans, in the bronco or the f150-f350 from 80-96 , the only differance is the configurationof the cabs and the style seat , and the lower reinforcements . also i had a 80 bronco, that i had 85 bronco seats n tracks in.

 

I disagree. My recent experience tells me that I actually had NOT read enough into this topic. Otherwise I would have known that a bucket seat from a 9th generation truck does NOT fit well into an 8th generation cab (it sits too high).

You specific feedback above somewhat confirms my suspicion that something changed relative to seat height starting with the 9th gen trucks in '92. Perhaps the dashboard and steering wheel got moved upward, requiring a higher seat to match? Total speculation on my part - just trying to think outside the box a little with the data I have.

 

All the bucket seats of the older ford f-series's/bronco/explorer/ranger have the same bolt pattern on the base of the seat. You just need the correct rails for the vehicle your installing them into. I have swapped the same style explorer seats into my 95f150 and an older 85 f250. Both trucks had factory buckets.


As for removing the rails from the seat there is 4 bolts with 10mm heads to do so.

 

Thanks, that's good to know. And as you've indicated, since the seats un-bolt easily from the tracks with a 10mm socket, a "junkyard field swap" is possible. In my case, I'd want to mount up '80 - '91 Bronco tracks with Explorer (probably) seats.

What year Explorer did your seats come from? (Edit... Looks like '91 - '98 would be the year-range I'd want to look for, Explorer or Ranger)

 

I think I got them from a 95ish style explorer with the rounder front end not the older boxy style but that's just what I happened to find in good shape.

 

Thanks for confirming what I seemed to be finding. I'm not sure if the mounting changed after '98, but I saw a few references indicating that as a cut-off date. I imagine the odds of the seats being powered are higher as the years carried on, and I'd rather not bother with that extra complication. It also makes it more difficult to remove the seats in the junkyard.