Seats

Fitting seats

I bought some Cobra Imola seats from Demon-tweeks, I figured as I am not the skinniest of people that the GT width would be a better option.

The seats are in black with removable base cushions, this is useful if you are tall as a crash helmet will add a couple of inches to the height of the occupant.

Fitting these seats was not easy, I purchased some of the std side mounts for use with this seat and soon realised they would need some serious modification to even come close.

As the seat mounts are different heights on each side the mounts will have to be made so they are different heights, and hopefully the mounting holes will fit.

Step one was destroying the original fixings. I was originally going to cut out the cross brace that the front seat mounts connect to and then bolt the seat rails straight to the floor, but this was totally unfeasible on the passenger side due to the raised part of the floor for the gearbox bell housing.

So I decided to use the tabs that the original seats connected to the car with, out with the drill and a hammer!

After drilling out the welds and rivets holding the tabs on I was left with four mangled little brackets to try to fix to my new side frames. They were beaten into submission with a bloody great hammer until they were flat again.

Then I had to call on Stu to come and show me how to wield my welder in anger, as seats need to be firmly in place and my welding ability was “limited” I thought it best to ask for help. Once Stu had set the welder up it was straight forward enough to use and I did a few of the seams on the drivers seat and later I did all of the seams on the passenger side.

We stripped the paint from the side mounts and on the locating tabs to be welded on. I used the holes that I had previously drilled the welds out of and bolted them into position with the seats fitted. This would eliminate any problems, with fitting… hopefully.

The tabs were welded on and left to cool, and a test fit revealed it was fine!! that is a first. So the seat was pulled out again and the new sub frame painted with hammerite smooth to give a nice finish to my still slightly lumpy welds.

The passenger side presented a bit more of a problem, the plan was initially to use the original side frames and mount the seat mount part of the brackets to the std assembly, therefore keeping the original slider mechanism in the seat., this was not to be as the brackets supplied for the seats are too short once you cut the angled parts off the bottom. So now I couldn’t do what I’d planned originally and I’d cut the brackets up, preventing me from mounting them in the same way as the driver seat.

I decided to cut the tabs ff the original passenger side and get some 4mm plate steel to weld it all together with.

I live near an industrial estate and there is always scrap metal in the bins, so I had a word with a chap and he let me take a few bits of metal, enough to make a fair few more if it went wrong…

The sheet was cut down and welded to the side mounts and then the tabs were welded on in the same manner as the drivers side. There was a little bodge application and the seat fitted perfectly.

Again out with the seat and a coat of hammerite to hide all the misdemeanours! My welding is getting far better now.

So unfortunately neither seat is adjustable, but I did mount the passenger seat quite a way back from the normal position so the passenger is out of my way a bit more and also nearer the centre of gravity of the car.

The cage down bars make getting in and out a tad awkward but it isn’t too bad, and the new seats really give a business like feeling to the car.

The harness was then refitted and adjusted to length. Job done! Thanks for the help Stu !!

Stevec