My '98 E250 cargo van has the standard vinyl seats with no armrests etc.
Besides the Sienna seats, which are no option in Europe due to the lack of Siennas at all here, has anybody ever mounted 3rd party seats from another manufacturer, i.e. BMW?
I need something with a bit more lumber support and lateral support. I loved the Recaros that came stock with my Opel Omega V6 (Cadillac Catera Sport in the US). Anybody ever tried to fit Catera seats in the van?
I need to focus on European or Asian cars which are avail. in Europe, though.

 

I have put afternarket Recaros in previous vans, specifically an '86 GMC. I put Ford van captain's chairs in my '02 E150 which came with conversion van seats.

The van seat bases have flat tops with bolt holes so the adapters for manual type seats can be pretty simple to make up--as simple as a plate or a couple steel straps with bolt holes in them. You will need to get the seat base tilt right, and I would suggest using grade 8 bolts for mounting. Remove one of the stock seats and take note of the bolt hole pattern.

Alternatively, conversion van seats or performance seats from a speed equipment dealer would also be pretty easy to mount onto your stock bases. There are a lot of performance seats on the market. Find some you like and mount them.

Good luck,
George

 

This thread might be helpful, Karsten.
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...-brackets.html

If the cargo floor does not have the correct placement, drilling and bolting steel nutplates below the floor is mostly easy if you avoid wiring, fuel tanks, exhaust, fuel lines, etc. Using nutplates lets you bolt from the top and convert back to cargo with minimal effort. jim

 

Sounds to me like he's talking about driver and front passenger seats, Jim...

 

Indeed, driver and passenger only.
That's very useful information George. Seems I'll have to take one out and measure. I have a Sparco racing seat out of my race car so measurement will be on order. Still have to find a way to attach the seat belt latches and tensioner.

 

Unless I'm really remembering wrong, the inside belt buckles on my '02 attached to the seat bases and the tensioner was in the wall of the van...but maybe the inside buckle was on the slider portion of the seat so it traveled fore and aft. If the new seat ends up in close to the same place, I think you're all set.. I even drilled the holes in my driver's base about an inch rearward to move the captain's chair back, and used washer stacks under the front studs of the seats to lift the fonts. So I got the angle right.

On the old GMC, I had to buy some Recaro adapters that were basically a long inverted "U" shape that bolted to the bases, and the Recaro sliders mounted onto those. Again, I think I drilled the holes in the seat bases back from the original positions to get more legroom.

I also had the Recaros in an old FJ40 Land Crusher and kept them when I sold the FJ, decided to mount them in my van. They sure were nice. Nowadays, we are dealing with weight sensors for the front airbags along with side airbags, so the days of interchanging seats are over....

George

 

Buckles and tensioners are mounted directly to the seats. When installing the Sienna seats you have to drill a new hole for the tensioner to be mounted to the new seats, though.
That's why I search for something where the buckles are already attached to the seat and can be changed over to the Ford units.

 

Luckily my '98 doesn't have any weight sensors in the seats, they would go postal every time I put my fat butt in there