Front Seat Swap (Town & Country 2nd Row)

[djkeev]

[MaiTai]

Thanks tosimplify for the adapter 1/4 steel plate idea - solid and pretty straight forward. Making a template first is helpful. Plate is 17x17.

[Kirsche Wasserboxer]

I joined the club and installed a set of these in my Westy this past weekend. I found a good deal on a pair of the grey cloth seats on eBay, and used the adapters from Small Car for the install. I cleaned up the swivel bases while I had the seats off, and had to install new bushings on the passenger swivel as well. So far, I like them, but have yet to do a longer drive with them in. My only complaint right now is that the increase in height has added to my limited view of the top of the speedo and tach. I'm 6'2", and already was missing some of the gauge tops, but it is now worse. I'll have to play around with the amount of recline on the seat back to see if I can get some improvement. I generally like to sit pretty upright, so I may have to get used to not seeing the tops of the gauges. I guess I could remove the swivel base on the driver's side as well, but wonder if that would make it hard to get these on/off with the small car adapters? I had both bases rotated to the doors when I installed them.
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1990 Westfalia Vanagon
2.1 Wasserboxer

[aiwetir]

You could get a Scangauge

[Kirsche Wasserboxer]

[aiwetir]

Oh, right, lol, sorry, wasn't paying attention.

I've always wanted to hook a bike computer up as the speedometer

[Forthwithtx]

[Jorda115]

SUCH A GREAT IDEA AND LOOKS GOOD TOO. THANKS FOR THE INPUT AND POSTING THIS IDEA.

[vwcrazyfamily]

Did the TC swap but reupholstered the seat to better match the van. I bought a set of cloth seats and found that there were some issues that would need to be over come in the reupholstering process. The material used to cover the TC seats are basically a very thin fabric sticker that is applies to the foam. This was an issue because one I had to very gently separate the foam and the fabric sticker without damaging the seat foam. Secondly there was no mechanical way to pull and anchor the pleats to get the couture of the seats to look and feel right. The foam is also very thin where the pleats need to be pulled through and anchored. When the new covers were made we put in very shallow fabric channels behind each pleat so that I could used welding rod and nylon string to pull the pleats down and anchor to the seat frame. I anchored each pleat three places using a combination of hog rings and the string in other places. Like I said the seats are not set up for any kind of mechanical anchoring so it was improvised to any point on the frame that would work. Over all it turned out very nice but just required a little work and imagination.
I have used the seat for about 1,000 miles and can say that they are very comfortable and a vast improvement over the OEM seats. I did keep the swivel bases and it does make the seating height higher and for me a little harder to exit the van because my leg is a little tight between the steering wheel and the new seat, minor tradeoff in my opinion. I am tall with short inseam and long torso so the critical part was headroom; there is about 38” from where your butt goes and the headliner. In my case the new TC seats seem to give more when I sit than the OEM seats, which helps with headroom. The drives side seat just barely has the room to fold down while facing forward, this make a nice place to store thing while camping.

[djkeev]

Nice job on the seats!! ^^^

You should be proud of them.

Glad to hear that you are finding the comfort level to be much better than OEM VW too.

I've nothing but praise for this particular seat swap.

Dave
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Stop Dead Photo Links how to post photos

Ghia
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=392473

Vanagon
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6315537#6315537

Beetle
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=482968&highlight=74+super+vert

[campism]

[a1fa]

I have an extra set of black perforated leather T&C seats that I was going to use as rear seats.

PM if you are interested. Pickup in Little Rock. Can't ship.
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Learn to ride. Ride to learn.

[HoneyVan84]

[dlb154]

I'm considering the attachment as referenced above (originally posted by fxr, reposted by Honeyvan84) but want to use the Recaro slider kit that Go Westy sells rather than the stock slider rails and modified adjustment rod:
http://www.gowesty.com/product/retrofit-seats/21308/recaro-slider-kit?v=

Has anyone used the Recaro adapters?

[djkeev]

[dlb154]

Dave,

I think the set you got was a bit more straight forward. The Go Westy kit will require me to fab cross members to attach the seat to the GW Recaro slides.

I don't like the idea of bolting the seats to the swivel rails. It's my understanding the Small Car adapters bolt to the swivel rails and your forward/aft movement is only the range of the Stow-n-Go built in slide.

I like the Go Westy Recaro slides because they are actuated by a front-of-seat lever rather than the side seat option like stock. Might work out nice and allow for the additional slide range that the stock Stow-n-Go seats have built in.

Guess if the exchange rate improves, the set you got may be the better way to go...

[WLD*WSTY]

[dlb154]

Thanks! Just ordered a pair. Total $80 for two sets shipped. Looks like the listing claims they are a pair but turns out it is a pair of sliders, good for one seat.

Hope you caught that and ordered two pair of slider sets.

[djkeev]

The trouble with these is that you are not using the VW seat tracks, you are adding on top of the welded in tracks.
Every bit you add raises the seat up.

The Dodge seats come with adequate adjustment hardware, The seat hardware function is not much different than these tracks from GoWesty. You aren't really gaining anything by adding GoWesty's tracks to the Stow and Go tracks except adding adjustment length.

The goal it to mate to the VW tracks as seamlessly as possible or you will be one of those complaining that your thighs are a tight fit to the steering wheel.

IMHO there are three viable options......

Harvest your tracks from your VW seat,

Purchase Small Cars NON ADJUSTABLE tracks

Purchase the German ADJUSTABLE tracks.
https://www.vw-t3-bus-shop.de/sitzadapter-fur-sportscraft-armlehnensitz-s91s81


Dave
_________________
Stop Dead Photo Links how to post photos

Ghia
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=392473

Vanagon
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6315537#6315537

Beetle
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=482968&highlight=74+super+vert

[Twan]

Now, I can't speak for the actual install in a van, but I am writing this post from the middle row of a Grand Caravan, and I'm finding these seats to be rather comfortable. The only two things I can think of that aren't perfect for me is the armrests are a tad too low, and the seat bottom is too short to provide any actual thigh support for me. I think they're both a result of me being 6' tall and long in the torso, combined with the higher floor I'm this minivan. Overall, these feel way more comfortable than the blown out stock seats currently in my van, and hopefully they'll satisfy my gripes.