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Thu Jun 02, 2016 4:28 am

goffoz wrote: benandmj wrote: Slight change of plans for us as far as mounting these seats. I tracked down the brackets pictured below and they are being shipped from Germany as we speak.

Thats very similar to how I did my drivers seat.(non swivel)
What are these base made for , do you have a link?
I see 2 issues with them as pictured, the hole spacing on the cross plates looks too long for the TC bolt pattern...Is it specified for TC seats?
Also the slide release lever will interfere with the seat edge. I had to bend mine so it was lower and closer to the slide, this puts it inside the edge of the seat.
...otherwise it will not operate
You can see how close it needs to be in the pic of my (above) swivel base

I paid $190 USD shipped. My goal has been to use the stock sliders in the van. I don't want to cannibalize my factory seats for their sliders and finding a decent used set and accommodating to the T&C seats I would ultimately be making a bracket very similar to what is pictured here. They aren't cheap but I'll still end up under $500 total for this project.

As for the bolt holes lining up, I'm doubtful. With the double adjustability I'm curious if I can drill new hole for the more narrow T&C tracks. If not, I'll weld the tracks to the cross bars. I'm not too concern about clearance with the slider release as modifications there should be fairly simple.

Thu Jun 02, 2016 9:04 pm

Here are the pics of my drivers side bases, these are made from some scavenged stock slides and 2 pieces of 3x1" steel tube, also 4 pieces of 3/16" wire are used to locate the springs for the Vw slide locks.
first here is a pic of the seat in place, you can see how close it fits.

Here is a close up of how tight the slide release is to the TC seat, can you spot it in the above pic?.
You can also see pieces of 3/16" wire used to locate the slide lock springs

Here is a pic of the whole bracket bolted to the seat, note the 2 unused bolt spots at the backrest end.

Here is a shot from the clutch pedal showing the tight clearances, but this gets the seat too a very comfy slightly above stock height.

Sat Jun 04, 2016 11:31 am

I just picked up a set of grey leather and grey cloth seats like to OP's to try them out. I am not sure leather is for me but we shall see.
It looks like the seat belt receiver can be unbolted from the seat pretty easily to avoid confusing those who don't know better than to not latch into it.

Sun Jun 05, 2016 7:23 pm

Removing the seatbelt receiver is dead easy, a few minutes and you are done. With the seat closed all the way it gives a stable work platform.
Squeeze this metal clip a little and push it out.

Flip the panel at the back of the seat down and remove this screw.

Push this metal clip out

Remove the silver bolt and loosen the black one a few turns.

Shear off this black plastic push on clip with a big screwdriver

Open the seat up and pull the receiver out, if it doesn't come out easily loosen the black bolt further and use a screwdriver to pry the brackets away from each other and it should come out.
Once the receiver is removed the plastic cover comes off easily and you can remove the unused cable from a cam at the pivot and you can clean the bottom of the seat up of unused cable clutter.

Sun Jun 05, 2016 8:49 pm

Nice, I was playing with my new seats yesterday and realized the same thing. Didn't take any pictures though.

I do have to say I was favorably impressed with the eBay seller from Arizona. I ordered the seats Monday and they arrived Thursday. The seats look brand new. Even have clear plastic stuck to parts of the seat. Can't wait to get these mounted.

Mon Jun 06, 2016 3:54 pm

Did mine over the last couple of days. I was very happy with the ebay seller - the seats were very well protected and packaged, and arrived promptly.

My old, manky, non-OEM seats did have slides for the turntables, so I made some brackets from some 1/8" 1"x1" steel angle to marry them to the seats. I cut four 420mm lengths, drilled 8mm clearances holes - the VW slides are 387mm between centres, and the T&C seats are 240mm between centres - and chopped a bit more off each one to give clearance for odd tabs and things on the slides.

I had to straighten out the VW adjusting rod so it didn't foul the new seat. Total extra cost including a few hack-saw blades and some 8mm nuts and washers was less than $20, even buying the angle-iron from Ace (it's at the end of my road...).

Mrs fxr is very pleased, and *loves* the armrests. ;)

Mon Jun 06, 2016 7:02 pm

OMG! I really want a set of these!

shadetreetim, what is the color of yours?

Mon Jun 06, 2016 7:22 pm

His look like my grey leather seats.
The grey cloth seats have a small square dot pattern in the fabric.

Mon Jun 06, 2016 10:26 pm

unibagel wrote: OMG! I really want a set of these!

shadetreetim, what is the color of yours?

Grey leather

Tue Jun 07, 2016 4:42 am

They look almost tan in the pics. Do they look alright with the Vanagon Brown?

Tue Jun 07, 2016 7:26 am

These are the tan ones. Also more pics on the first page of this thread. They do look good with the brown interior.

Tue Jun 07, 2016 7:33 am

Figure its worth mentioning here that Small Car has jumped on this train. There website is down this morning but I'm curious to see their pricing and application method. Hoping they wil sort out the heated seats for us.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BGVJIiagzl0/

Tue Jun 07, 2016 4:03 pm

Obviously a better deal to get them from ebay.
https://smallcar.com/vanagon/interior-parts/seat-replacements.html

They don't have images of the seat brackets up yet.
https://smallcar.com/vanagon/interior-parts/vanagon-front-seat-replacement-brackets.html

Tue Jun 07, 2016 4:13 pm

benandmj wrote: Figure its worth mentioning here that Small Car has jumped on this train. There website is down this morning but I'm curious to see their pricing and application method. Hoping they wil sort out the heated seats for us.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BGVJIiagzl0/

I was thinking (in my case), that there is a battery under each seat. Perhaps the rectangular hole that is left when removing the unused seat belt receptical would be a good place for the switch.

And perhaps running a double throw switch with a resistor might get you two cooking levels...

Tue Jun 07, 2016 4:33 pm

Look at Rostra heated seat kits, the wiring is pretty simple for heated seats.

Tue Jun 07, 2016 8:32 pm

syncrodoka wrote: Obviously a better deal to get them from ebay.
https://smallcar.com/vanagon/interior-parts/seat-replacements.html

Until Small Car buys em all up! Kidding as I'm sure there are plenty out there.

I'm curious if one of the pioneers from this thread has a Small Car association or if they picked up on this from this thread?

As for the heaters, I agree it should be simple to decipher. I'm just lazy. I'll put a Fluke to mine this weekend.

Wed Jun 08, 2016 5:34 am

Smallcar certainly listens to the 'market' and internet 'chatter'
when the $15deal for the mercedes steels came about..
didn't take long till smallcar had a couple pallets of them incoming and offered for ~$25.. but I can't begrudge a business from taking part in any business opportunity. especially a business I'd like to see succeed enough to stay around..

Fri Jun 10, 2016 5:35 pm

This week, between suffering a cold and trying to get a big commercial A/V job ready for their grand opening, I haven't done anything but think of how I would build my brackets. Without actually test fitting them, I was concerned about clearance for the battery and the storage I have under the drivers seat. I envisioned a flip forward seat bracket allowing easy access to storage as my solution for the drivers side...

This afternoon I finally had some garage time. I started with the drivers seat. No flip seat solution required. That makes it easier. As I have Bluestar seats coming out, in reasonable condition, I didn't want to cut the seats apart to get the rails. I had an old TV mount that I cannibalized to build my own seat rails to slide into my existing mounts.

They fit in the mounts like they were made for it..

Then I cut some 1"x2" tubing to span between the rails. Here they are bolted to the seat.

And the rails bolted to the crossbars. Ready to slide into place. I need to pick up some larger washers.

All I need to do now is put a screw in to prevent the rails from sliding out. They are a tight fit as is. The seat in place.

The passenger side was easier. I cut two 1"x2" tubing pieces that run the same direction as the stock rails, pretty much as described by others earlier in this thread. Bolted the seat to them, and then to the swivel mount. 1" thick adapter is just about perfect, height wise.

I didn't get a great picture of the drivers seat in relation to the carpet, but it sits directly on it. The seat back adjuster winds up on the floor, which makes it hard to get your fingers under it to pull up. I think this seat would be better 1/2" higher. My current plan is to buy some 1/2" x 2" aluminum bar stock and build a spacer to fit between my adapter and the T&C adjusters. That would serve two purposes, raise the seat, and strengthen this area.

I feel like the front of the drivers seat is slightly low, maybe a 1/4" to 1/2" higher in the front would be better. Although that might change after I raise the entire seat 1/2".

I do like the depth of these seats. They are deeper hip to knee than stock Vanagon seats. Plus the side bolsters, although not huge, gives nice support of the thigh. I don't think it'll take much to get these dialed in to be perfect. Got a 8 hour round trip planned in a couple weeks. It'll be nice to see how they ride over a long haul.

And we still need to see what Lady Shadetree thinks... [-o<

Fri Jun 10, 2016 11:19 pm

Soon to be as hard to find as forged CLK320 wheels?
-d

Mon Jun 13, 2016 3:49 pm

Finally got our seats installed. Not much to add as far as installation that hasn't already been covered in this thread.

The brackets I got turned out to be a great solution as the spacing of the crossbars was perfect, I just had to drill my own holes. They do fit TIGHT. I used a rubber mallet to coerce them on but once mounted to a seat the additional leverage made it a bit easier to slide them in place. I figured it best to have the slider lever on the inside of both seats. They arrived from Germany in about a week.

brackets:
http://vw-t3-bus-shop.de/en/sitzadapter-fur-sportscraft-armlehnensitz-s91s81

I used the holes in the front of the Mopar sliders that already had nuts welded to the opposite side. 8mm SST bolt was all that was needed there. For the back I used the open holes and the same 8mm bolts with matching nuts. Measure twice and drilled once on 7 of the 8 holes. Not too bad.

I'll try to update with better pictures later but its 98 or so out and I'm done.

Big thanks to everyone that has contributed to this thread. This is a super easy swap.