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Ok guys, I've published those words and pics here: Seat Interchangeability - Gary's Garagemahal Please let me know what you think, what upgrades are needed, corrections, etc. Let's get this right for the documentation.
I should have asked these questions:
Brad - Do you agree with my statement about the 40/20/40 tracks not fitting the buckets?
Jerry - Do you agree with my statement that your seats go fully back w/o hitting the window?
Ok guys, I've published those words and pics here: Seat Interchangeability - Gary's Garagemahal Please let me know what you think, what upgrades are needed, corrections, etc. Let's get this right for the documentation.
I should have asked these questions:
Brad - Do you agree with my statement about the 40/20/40 tracks not fitting the buckets?
Jerry - Do you agree with my statement that your seats go fully back w/o hitting the window?
My 40/20/40 tracks bolted right to the bucket seats BUT I am using 92+ buckets
And for the thread that was posted about my other seats. in that thread I used bronco tracks(since I had them) and modified them to work
Ok, I think we are closing in on solid answers. My '88 seats won't bolt to the '94+ tracks that came with the 40/20/40 pan, but your '92 seats did. So, some time between '88 and '92 the seats must have changed.
One thought I had was that we could see when the part number for the seats changed. But, Ford changed the part number each year from an E6 for 1986, to E7, then E8, and then E9. So there's no way to tell when the bolt pattern change happened through the seat part number.
That leaves us with the tracks. As shown below, the track assembly for the buckets and captain's chairs were the same from '80 until the end of the catalog's coverage, which is '89. So the holes in the seats had to have been the same until '89. Maybe I can get someone with a catalog for the 90's to figure out when the track change happened. For simplicity's sake, the specific question is did Ford use E0TZ 9861704-B and E0TZ 9861705-A for the 1990 and later bucket seats and captain's chairs? And, when did the numbers change?
Gary..My seats go fully back, and clear the window by about 1/4" !!. Again...I left the forward tilt on the passenger side..and it fit the same. I found that the bucket seat back has more of an angle than the bench..thus putting you closer to the steering wheel....let me know if I can help with anything else...Jerry..
Having done a lot of reading about the seats in brochures, parts catalog, etc I realize I've been calling the captain's chairs "bucket seats". Ford was very specific, and I think what you have are the true "bucket seats" and what Brad and I have are the captain's chairs. So, I need to clean up my terminology on the web page.
Gary..Went to town just after I posted this AM on the subject. (Wife is having the whole inside of our house painted and I had to get out for a while !) I thought about the same thing..there being a difference in "bucket" seats and Captains chairs. I would not be surprised if Captains chairs are bigger..and the buckets are used in other FORD products that call for them .. Maybe we should do some measuring ??..
Gary if you look on the underside of some ford bucket seats, they have multiple holes in a row.
I put some small ford explorer seats into my 89 supercab f150 that I sold.
I unbolted the tracks from the seats and laid the f150 tracks to the Explorer seats. I matched the front bolt holes together and saw that the rear track holes matched one of the extra holes in the Explorer seat. If you run the track bolt in the hole, it cuts and makes a threaded hole.
The factory f150 tracks bolted up to the Explorer seats and reattached to the f150 floor mounts.
Kyle - Info on seats that fit would be a good upgrade to the web page. But, do you remember what year the Explorer buckets were? Approximately? And by "small Explorer seats" you mean the seats were small?
According to the table above your '89 tracks were the same as our '80-86 bench seat tracks, so this might be a good way to go. Thanks!
Gary..Went to town just after I posted this AM on the subject. (Wife is having the whole inside of our house painted and I had to get out for a while !) I thought about the same thing..there being a difference in "bucket" seats and Captains chairs. I would not be surprised if Captains chairs are bigger..and the buckets are used in other FORD products that call for them .. Maybe we should do some measuring ??..
Those are your seats?(first one in gates pic?) they look FANTASTIC, and I HATE red
I've updated the web page with the following. Let me know what you think.
Seat Pan: Starting in '94 Ford used a "pan" to mount the 40/20/40 seats in the trucks. The "pan" mounts to the bench seat holes and accepts the 40/20/40 split bench seat. That pan is a direct bolt-in to the regular or crew cab trucks, and the bucket seats can be mounted to that pan. However, it isn't as straightforward as it might seem at first. Unfortunately the tracks that the 40/20/40 seats mount to won't easily mount to the buckets used up through 1989, and the tracks that the '89 and earlier buckets come with don't easily attach to the pan. However, Diesel_Brad has found that the tracks that come with the 1992 bucket seats will attach directly to the pan. So, some place between '89 and '92 the buckets and tracks changed, and at this point I don't know when that was. In any event, given how hard it is to modify the earlier tracks I'd look for 1992 or later buckets - although I don't yet know how long Ford used those bucket seats.
Having said all that, if you are still determined to use the early buckets, then from my experience the easiest approach is to use the tracks that came with the Bronco buckets and adapt them to fit the 40/20/40 seat pan. I documented how I did it starting with this post in Dad's truck thread on FTE. And Diesel_Brad from FTE showed how he did it in this thread. Either of these ways works, but neither are without some effort.
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