I swapped by bench for buckets this weekend. I bought a 2007 Reg Cab M/T 4-banger a few weeks ago. The bench had to go. I didn't have a camera handy while I was doing it, otherwise I would have taken pictures for everyone. I'm not 100% complete with the swap, so they next time I pull the seats out, I may take pictures.
I didn't use OEM toyota seats. All of the local junkyards wanted too much for them: $250/seat.
I took measurements of everything 2 weeks ago and spent the day at my local pull-a-part and grabbed the bucket seats out of a 99 Isuzu rodeo. While I was there, I pulled seats from a few Honda cars, an Eclipse, a Celica and a MKIII supra. All late 90's models.
The Rodeo seats looked the best and had the best overall dimensions, as in, they had a narrower track width and the actual seat rails/brackets were shorter than OEM measurements, so I knew I could get them to work - but I knew I would have mount them myself.
Disassembled the interior. Removed everything in my way: Bench, sensors, center console, door sills (these just pop out), center/child seat belt, etc. Folded carpet up and forward to get it out of my way.
Driver's Side:
On my 2007 Standard cab, the front seat mount is raised and had bolt holes w/ tack-welded nuts in both right and left sides of the raised mount for OEM buckets. The OEM buckets have a wider track width (~18"), where the rodeo buckets I used had more of a ~15 and 3/4" track width. I used the outer (left) OEM bolt hole and marked and drilled a new hole to match the width of the inner (right) Isuzu track. Tacked a nut in place under raised mount to hole the inner or right side bolt. Used OEM bolts in front mounting. Example:
Code:
^ Front of truck ^ OEM Right mount
/
=O==========O==O=
OEM Left | | \
mount | | New Mount drilled for Isuzu Bucket
| |
| <-seat rails-> |
The isuzu rails were not even. The inner rail was about an inch shorter that the outer rail. I had to unbolt the inside rail / track from the both seats and raise them. I used longer 40mm M8 x 1.25 bolts and used 3/8" inch nuts for the spacers. 3x 3/8" nuts equaled an inch and made both sides of the seat rails parallel or equal. The nuts were slightly larger than the metric M8's so they just slid right over the longer bolts. This should be self-explanatory and I hope every gets what I am saying. But if not:
Code:
Seat bottom
/_____________\
| |
Outer Rail | Inner Rail (right side)
(left)
So I had to make one longer to even them out.
Once they were even, I fitted the front bolts and lined out the seat and marked the location for the rears with a sharpie. I had to bend the actual seat mounting tabs with channel-locks about a degree or two to make them even with the Tacoma floor and front mount.
Drilled holes for the new rear bolts. Tacked bolts in place under truck.
Rinse and repeat for passenger side. Re-assemble truck. Lots of little black circular stickers covering holes in rear of cab. Since I drilled new holes for different seats, these were not used, but I'm assuming if you used OEM seats, the holes are pre-drilled. I can check to see if nuts are tacked in place for any of these holes for OEM rear bucket seat bolts. I forget to check on this.
I'm still working on the sensors and etc. I re-used the Bench seat-belts. I have most of the sensors mounted to the new Buckets, with the exception of the pad that detects if a passenger is in the seat and enables the airbag.
Hope this help anyone who wants to swap. I know a lot of people want to do this and the information is sparse.
; a POS if one ever existed. Not a con for me, but roughly 1" lower seat height. Maybe having to drill new holes is a con?
