[lwg]

I am sick and tired of my head hitting the roof in my truck. I am ready to pull out the factory seats and replace them with something mounted lower. I am thinking about going with the Mastercrafts Sportsman in a +1" width for my big backend. The local 4X4 shop has most of the styles to sit in and the Sportsman's seem to be the most confortable.

In measuring the stock seats there is around 8"+ of space between the seat mount and the top of the seat. I need to obtain around 2" total headroom somehow. I would like to leave the stock seat mounting platform in place, but am prepared to remove it if need be.

My question is this, how different is the Defender seat mounts than the Rangie? I am sure they are not the same but I am wondering if the mod is worthwhile or if I should just have custom mounts made or find an existing mount that might come close enough and still be safe?

Later this week I plan on removing the passenger seat and measuring exactly the mounting dimensions I have to work with.

Surely I am not the first Rangie to do this?

Larry

 

[road1will]

how tall are you? just asking cause ive never had a problem hitting the roof and im 6'

 

[Serious One]

Hey,

A guy in Portland took the seat base out and had it 'dished' at a local upholstery place.

it did make a lot of difference in the headroom, but I'm not sure it was 2 inches.

Problem with doing anything drastic to the seat base is that the electronics under there need some room. Also if you tried to keep the original seats but just lowered the bases, the motors might not have enough room to fit.

It's a dilemma for sure.

 

[lwg]

6'4" or 6'5" depending on who's measuring or how much I've had to drink:beer:

 

[64rovr]

6'4" or 6'5" depending on who's measuring or how much I've had to drink:beer:

well that explains it

you could do pretty much anything if you didnt care about keeping the motors or electric adjustability

on another note, anyone ever had their seat circuitry fail with th seat in a horrible position? happened to me and it sucked, so i had to wiggle my way so i had good access to the seat electrics and then jumper the circuits with a paperclip

 

[evilfij]

Disco manual seats and d-90 seats use pretty much the same mounting style and based only on a visual the same bolt pattern. I would measure but I willing to bet Range Rover classic is the same too.

Ron

 

[lwg]

I actually would prefer to lose the electrics. It's just one more thing that can/will go wrong. I had pondered the idea of modifying the existing mounts. I had also thought about finding some Manual seats to replace the electrics but have heard they are roughly the same height as the electrics.

The factory mounts don't look that odd. They seem to be about 19" wide, not sure on length as I haven't measured them yet.
All four corners seem to be the same height which would make fabbing something up easier.

What kind of shop would work on custom seat mount? There seems to be a real fear of lawsuits regarding safety with this sort of stuff.

 

[Serious One]

Originally posted by 9V


on another note, anyone ever had their seat circuitry fail with th seat in a horrible position? happened to me and it sucked, so i had to wiggle my way so i had good access to the seat electrics and then jumper the circuits with a paperclip

One trick I learned from rangerovers.net is you can get a drill, take the cable out of the motor, put it in your cordless drill and fire it up. depending on the direction you need to go you either set it to drive forwards or backwards.

It really does work.

 

[lwg]

Disco manual seats and d-90 seats use pretty much the same mounting style and based only on a visual the same bolt pattern. I would measure but I willing to bet Range Rover classic is the same too.

Ron

Do you by chance have access to both for measurements? I would really appreciate it if you could do that. There seems to be a few aftermarket Defender seat mounts available. Mastercraft is rumored to make one.

Heck if the Defender seats with their manual adjustments would give me 2" more headroom I would just go for them..... Unless they cost me more than $400 for 2 of them.

 

[UPOVR]

another option is to loose the sunroof and find a non-sunroof model. I know on 87 and 88 models it was an option. I found a roof in good shape for $200.00. You would gain close to two inches. plus you wouldn't have to worry about leaks!

 

[evilfij]

Bolt center to bolt center it is 17.25" x 17.25" for a D90 manual seat. Four holes in a square pattern.

Have to check one of the disco's tomorrow if need be but disco seats will but your head further into the roof.

Ron

PS you could always drive O.G. style

 

[lwg]

I measured the Rangie. The pattern is 17.5" Wide X 12.25" Long, Bolt center to center. Not quite the same as the Defender.

I wonder why the Defender is so much longer?

Of course it was dark and I had to hold both a flashlight and Measuring Tape, so the width might be closer to 17.25" in the daylight. I would hope.

Also I measured nearly 6" from the seat mounting base to the top of the seat cushion when down all the way. This seems high however I doubt there is much that can be done to the stock seat mounting brackets. The Seat mount that is attached to the body looks like a bear to remove. I guess one would have to Sawzall that thing off and start over if I truly wanted to lower the seats and put non-LR seats back in.

 

[evilfij]

I dunno why it is so long but I am sure you could run some axle or something to make up the length.

Ron

 

[lwg]

Ron,
Is there any chance I could get you to measure the seat height with the seat in the lowest position? I am looking for the measurement from the bottom of the Seat Mount (Where the bolt is) to roughly the top of the front part of the seat cushion.

 

[evilfij]

It is approximately 6in without anyone sitting on it (ie no squish factor)

There is no height adjustment on the seat.

Ron

 

[lwg]

Sounds like even if they did fit I wouldn't really gain much in height. Starting to think I may be removing some metal and fabbing up something new... Arghhhh!

 

[TxD90]

I'd guess the Defender has longer mounts because of the seatbox compartments.

AFA mounts go, I've heard very good things about the Corbeau mounts (Chris V did a write-up on them on d-90.com I think). And Corbeaus are supposed to be hella comfortable to boot.

The only Mastercraft bracket I know of is the one by Safari Gard. Some have seemed to like them, though I found them extremely lacking and would not be inclined to trust them in an emergency situation.

I can understand shops being afraid to touch the stuff for fear of liability, but I don't think fabbing them up would be that difficult a proposition, and for the most part I still live in the happy, innocent world of bolt-on.

 

[UPOVR]

you could get a really big booming stereo, a pair of colored underwear to wear on your head, and lay the seat W A Y back!:flipoff2:

 

[untrakdrover]

Slades seats are really comfortable! Which ones are you runnin mike? By the way, you ever fix that seat belt?

 

[Serious One]

Josh, you talking about the seats in the Serious One?

They are Corbeau's. I have the super fancy buckets in the S1 and the less crazy ones in the CC. Both are nice, but they are a groin-racker if you're not careful getting in and out.