Do Eurovan seats fit in Vanagons?

[MarkWard]

Thread resurrection. I looked at some beat later Vanagon seats for our 82, and just could not justify replacing them. The difference seemed minimal and they would need recovering.

The recaros GW sells look sweet and are comfortable, but just can't justify the cost. So, from reading, the Eurovan seats seem like a step in the correct direction. Our pick and pulls have zero VW's. We do have some other yards towards Miami. I need to verify the year that fits by just trimming the seat track.

From reading this thread, the cutoff seems to be 96. In other words 97 and on is a different design. Can someone please confirm the years that fit before I start calling around. Thanks a ton. mark

[indytriple]

[photogdave]

[MarkWard]

Thanks for the replies. The vanagon seats I looked at and sat in, were from a later tintop Vanagon, but would have needed to be recovered and that with the marginal improvement, did not seem worth it at the time. I suppose until you have sat in one all day, it is really hard to say. Thanks again.

[indytriple]

Picked up a nice pair of front '93 Eurovan seats from a boneyard in southern Indiana for $100. They cleaned up nicely, and they are in solid shape. They're even the color I wanted to match my grey interior on my Westy.

We gave 'em the ol' beer-drinkin', front-yard sittin' test last night by rushvan86's Westy. They passed with flying colors. More importantly, the wife sat in them, and she loves them.

I tracked mine down using http://www.car-part.com.
_________________
"See The Glass As Already Broken."

87 Vanagon Westy Auto Bostig

www.bluegrassbicyclecompany.com

[campism]

[indytriple]

The best (and unexpected) thing about the new Eurovan seats is the "La-Z-Boy" position. The worst part is everyone wants to sit there.

The wife:

The buddy:

On a nice, sunny day. It's a great place for a nap.

I once considered removing the driver's side swivel with the old seats. That seems like crazy talk now. Lounge on.
_________________
"See The Glass As Already Broken."

87 Vanagon Westy Auto Bostig

www.bluegrassbicyclecompany.com

[campism]

Here is my pic of the '93 EV seats I installed in my '87. Note the downturned edges that must be cut off so they then resemble the Vanagon seat rail and fit into the tracks.

I know that these rails are used up to and including the '97 EVs, but I do NOT know if later rails are the same as these. I've heard they change at some point but do not know which year does that.

[indytriple]

SAFETY BULLETIN! PLEASE READ!

I have discovered a potential safety problem with running early Eurovan seats in Vanagons. Please read this if you are currently using them or shopping for a set.

While on our last vacation in our Westy I had to make a quick stop and put the brakes on hard. My wife was in the Eurovan seat on the passenger side. During the stop the seat unexpectedly slid forward on its rails, but she was stopped by the seat belt. We realized after it happened that we could sometimes recreate the phenomenon by violently rocking back or forth on the seat while sitting on it.

Yesterday I finally had a chance to investigate, and I found the source of the problem. Anyone that is running these seats should investigate this and consider retrofitting the seats in a similar manner.

On the bottom near the rails there is a silver spring on each side that holds the seat locking mechanism in place until you lift the handle to make a fore/aft adjustment. The spring sticks down too far past the rail in a Vanagon application (keep in mind that you remove height when you modify the rails). When the seats get mounted into the Vanagon, the spring can get pushed upwards and cause the seat to not completely lock into position.

To be completely sure that this doesn't happen, the end of this spring should be cut off so that the seat will always be completely locked into position. I used a Dremel with a cutting wheel.

_________________
"See The Glass As Already Broken."

87 Vanagon Westy Auto Bostig

www.bluegrassbicyclecompany.com

[HeftySmurf]

Hey guys,

I picked up a set of euro seats recently.
They are super clean and comfortable, but looks like some serious modification..........


They are late model (99)
Could someone help me out?
Some of the pics below are no longer available, curious if anyone else has dealt with this.
thanks heaps

-mike

[AirCooledColorado]

Hey Mike and everyone else looking to put a later model Eurovan seat into a Westfalia. I picked some seats up for real cheap for a 1999 Eurovan and thought I'd try to get them into my 82, since the original seats were down to the wires. It really wasn't too bad at all! It took me about 2.5 hours to get both in, and that never having seen the bottom of either seat before.

Tools required: Allen key set, maybe a star drive set (but I used allen key), eight 5/8" bolts and nuts (could use washers too), a drill and a metal cutting drill bit.

Here's what I did:
1) Slide out the Westy seats
2) Get the Eurovan seats out of the van (four allen bolts holding the seat and track down to the body)
3) Get your new Eurovan seats and take the bottom cushion off. There are two star drive bolts holding the front on. Remove these bolts and recline the seat slightly. Then the whole bottom cushion slides off the factory rails by pulling it to the front.
4) Disconnect the seat back by removing the four allen bolts in the back holding it to the rail.
5) Take the whole Eurovan factory rail contraption and set it on the Westy swivel seat rails. Make sure you have the rail front forward and right side up, and just overlay it on top of the Westy rails. Finagle the seat/rails so that the bottom Eurovan rails are protruding in the front and are even with the Westy tracks. Take a drill bit made for metal and using the Eurovan holes as guides drill through the Westy rail.
6) Slide a bolt through your holes, tighten, rinse and repeat for the other three holes.
7) Put the seat back on with the four allen bolts
Slide the seat bottom back in and put the two star-drive bolts back in.
9) move on to the other seat.

NOTES: I believe I used 5/8 inch bolts, and I cut them to length, which was probably between 1.5 and 2 inches. Can't have them be too long or else it will interfere with the slide. I was able to get them on really snug, but could throw a few welds on the rails to increase the stability in case of accident. Seatbelts in Westys don't attach to seats, so I'm pretty comfortable with mine. Now I have two fully reclining seats which are a lot more comfortable. This method will add about 1" to the height of the seat, plus the extra cushion depth. I'm 6'4" and my hair just about touches the ceiling, but it works for me.

NOT SURE IF YOU COULD DO THIS ON A VANAGON WITHOUT SWIVEL SEATS. I had to swing the platform around to get the bolts on. It may be possible, but I don't know for sure.

PLEASE E-mail if you want photos. I have them but can't seem to upload them to the site.[/img]

[Microbusdeluxe]

This thread is an oldie, but a goodie. I finally tracked down a pair of '92 eurovan seats in a Vancouver, BC pick & pull. US $80.00 for the pair. Fabric is rather worn, so it looks like time for a recover with the original 'boogie-woogie" fabric, which is what came in my '81. I see that Gunzl in Germany has it for 55 euros a meter. Has anyone ordered from them? How is the speed and cost of shipping? Anybody stateside have it for a reasonable price?

Cutting down the rails was fairly easy, if a bit sparky. It's also necessary to cut off a small a seat belt jobber for the seat to slide on the rail. There is some interference with the built-in arm rests that the early Westys have on the doors. Overall the seating comfort appears to be a marked improvement. It does sit higher. I'm 6'5" so I may remove the driver's side swivel. I think a road trip is needed to help decision making.
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'69 Squareback RIP
'65 21 window deluxe sold before the price spike, damn it.
'70 rhd bay now a taxi in South Sudan
'81 Westy sold
'89 hightop Westy Joker syncro 16" now with Bostig!

[colinegreen]

can anyone state definitively that ONLY 1993-1997 Eurovan seats can be modified easily to fit the Vanagon seat tracks?

I found some from a '99 today... They are not near by so I can't inspect them to see if they look the same.

Colin

[danfromsyr]

Yes ONLY 92-95 Eurovan seats can EASILY be modified to fit vanagon tracks.

anything can be modified given resources like (time*$$) but the key word here is easily.

99 EV seats can not easily be modified to fit vanagon tracks.

[?Waldo?]

I picked up some decent front seats and one jump seat from a '93 Eurovan yesterday. Jump seat included the seat belt and receiver along with the plate that the seat clips to. I did not have a way to cut out the piece that is welded to the floor that the jump seat hooks around as I didn't have adequate tooling with me to cut the welds. When I get to installing the jump seats I will need to fabricate/improvise.

I got the two front seats installed today. For modifying the seat tracks, I unscrewed them from the seat bottoms. As mentioned previously in this thread, they are fastened to the seat-backs. In order to avoid any damage to the seat fabric, I bagged them in a couple of large trash bags and taped around where the seat backs meet the tracks. I then used a cutoff wheel on an angle grinder (along with respirator and hearing protection) to zip off the extra lip. I also clipped the springs in the way indytriple described (thanks for the info). I then assembled and installed them.

They are a very nice upgrade, IMO. Noticeably more comfortable and far more adjustable WRT seat-back position. They seem to slide more easily as well and very well finish off the gray interior of my '91.

I'll try to post up some pics when I install the jump seat.

[metropoj]

I picked up 2 93 Eurovan seats out of my local bone yard for 45 bucks, all foam very comfortable.

Too bad they are in BLUE ! I have brown 86 interior. So now looking for a decent seat cover that does the armrests too.

Too bad they were blue ...

Oh, I also need to look for a smaller steering wheel now ....

[kjono09]

I just got two, gently used Eurovan seats from pick-n-pull for $106. Its amazing the difference. All I had to do was remove the seat belt latch and extra bits on the tracks with a cuttoff wheel and grinder.

Eventually, I will get them re-upholstered to match my new fabric and foam for the back seats and bed. My ride be pimp-n.

Seats looking from upfront

Seats looking from behind

Brown Vinyl that I intend to use.

The old seats, I thought they were fine, but then I put my eurovan seats in and I can't go back. I can't believe they sold cars with these seats in them.
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84 Retro-Westy GW 2.2L (Vincent)
67 Bug 2007cc (WBX in progress) (Davey)

Submariner

[campism]

Your EV seats look as bad as mine. Hard to believe they can be as much of an improvement over stock, but there you go.
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'87 Westy in Wolfram Grey Metallic

[syncrodoka]

I put a set of EV seats in my son's syncro last weekend. His seats came out of a '92 and it has smooth grey fabric with the small square color dots in it and they are in better shape than mine. Like these-

The diagonal striped fabric doesn't wear as well. I have always had the intention of having mine reupholstered but after putting his in I will be putting a trip to the upholstery shop higher on the to do list since I am jealous of his. His doesn't have the rear grab handle or rear pocket that I kind of like about mine though.

I have been driving my 2wd around a bunch lately and I wish that it had EV seats in it as my back doesn't really adore those seats. We are planning on selling it so no upgrades are in it's future.

[metropoj]

My 95 EV set I got for 40 bucks complete and were in great shape. Foam was good but fabric a little worn.

I did the same as Andrew Libby and shaved the bottoms of the track off, yes a BIG improvement over my 86 stock seats.

Trying to find decent full covers for them as my blue seats don't look overly nice with my brown 86 interior !

The new seats do sit higher, this messes with my field of view of the Speedo and also brings me closer to the headliner.