Recommendations for replacement front seats + rail mods

[MisterCruiser]

I want to get rid of my cruisers front seats as I find them very hard on the back on a long drive with no lumbar support whatsoever. I actually always hated them.
It's a 90 series SWB, it's a van so I don't need the front seats to fold to let people into the back so I would consider a non-folding seat but would prefer a folding seat.

Will the seats from the 2003 -2010 LC fit in any way easy, they'd hardly just bolt in straight forward?

From searching, I've seen a lot of folk have fitted BMW seats, E46 seats, seems to be into 80series models though, I haven't found much on the 90's. The leather heated seats in my GT sport Mk5 Golf are very comfortable, I wonder if I could make these fit in the 90 series somehow.

Can anyone from experience recommend a seat that fits in easily and if anyone has pics of the modified rails or brackets, etc, that would be greatly appreciated.

 

[MisterCruiser]

I found nice cloth S-Line setas fron an Audi, I'd like to fabricate up some brackets without the need to cut the feet off of my originals.

I think I'll start with the passenger side seat first so I can still drive it. I'm guessing a good starting point would be to make the flat bars first and then weld feet onto them at the end. I'm also thinking it's easiest to just make a frame with the floor holes in it and then over lay it with another frame with holes in its fram to usit whatever seats I end up buying.

The Vw / Audi seats tend to have electric lumbar support, will this just be a case of getting 12v to the lumbar connector to operate it or is this but of wiring going to be more complicated to get working?

 

[Shayne]

Search for it and you may find a loom for electric seats already there though i don't recall anybody actually having electric seats in a 90 , a last minute decision to keep production costs down maybe ?

 

[Shayne]

And i just read this

Heated seat loom

Hi, my Prado came with fabric seats but I have swapped in a full set of leather interior from a UK Colorado. I have run a 12v from the battery to run the power seat adjustment, it works perfectly. The guy i got the seats from also gave me the harness for the heated seat, with the control...

www.landcruiserclub.net

 

[MisterCruiser]

Are the " sliding runners" the same on other landcruiser seats?
Are they the same on most seats in general i wonder like the Audi / Vw ones.

If the runners are the same it'd make things a lot easier to fabricate and save messing around trying to get the new seats to slide back / forth.
I reckon I can make up the feet and flat bar easy enough, it's just attaching that then to the sliding runner of the new seat that's going to be a bit of a challenge.

 

[MisterCruiser]

So my plan now is to buy an old battered 90 series seat and take the mounting feet off of it, drill out the rivets, etc and then attach them to whatever "new" seat I get. Most likely a leather seat from a 03-10 cruiser or else a Vw/Audi seat.
I don't want to remove the feet from my original seats in case it goes horribly wrong and I end up with no seats

I think the main issue could be if the rails on the new seat are wider or narrower than the originals and then when I attach the mounting feet to them obviously they be in the wrong position but I'm thinking all I'll have to do is weld a piece of metal from the foot to reach the mounting bolt hole, I'm hoping they shouldn't be too far away from the mounting holes. Hmmmm,,,,

 

[Shayne]

My plan was to cut the seat off the runners and weld a flat plate in its place so i could bolt a new seat to that .

 

[MisterCruiser]

That sounds like a good idea too, I wonder how easy it is to get a flat plate onto them though.
Why didn't you go ahead in the end or what did you do?

I picked up a a pair of old seats tonight so they'll be my guinea pigs.

 

[Shayne]

I actually bought folding bucket seats before realizing the fixed headrest meant i would no longer be able to fold seats down enough to sleep in my swb 90 so the plan was scrapped .

 

[MisterCruiser]

And did you just get fed up and lose interest? Why not sell them and buy seats that suit you? And do a How To Guide thread for us! Haha

I hope to be doing my swap Tues / Wed next week.

 

[Shayne]

They were new seats so i did sell them and i decided then as i want to keep my rear seats i'd be better off having them all recovered in leather . Theres nothing wrong with the seats anyway so it went on a back burner and that truck has been sorned for 2 years now . 3 Cruisers and i only have room and use for 2 .

 

[MisterCruiser]

I have fitted the Audi cloth S-line seat to my drivers side of the Landcruiser and I'd like to wire up the Electric Lumbar support function. That's the only electric movement function of the seats. All other movement is manual.
Can anyone tell me how to go about this?

I have 3 connectors on these new replacement Audi seats, a Yellow which I believe is the airbag, a Black which I don't know what it is and a Red which I believe is the electric Lumbar support.

Can anyone confirm the Red connector is for the Lumbar support please?
Also, can I connect the wires from the red connector to some sort of a manual switch / switches to operate the Lumbar or how do I do it?

 

[MisterCruiser]

 

[MisterCruiser]

For those that are interested.

 

[Shayne]

The very thought of car wiring makes me go cross eyed but i'd be thinking of the seat as a stand alone accessory like a fan you plug into the ciggy lighter and so i'd likely run wires directly from battery to switch to seat .

 

[Steve H]

Not sure on the colours for the wiring but I would think that something like an electric aerial switch would work for the support so you can adjust it both ways.

 

[MisterCruiser]

I got the wiring sussed, the red connector which only had 2 actual wires in it, a large power and an earth, I just earthed it to the seat mounting itself and brought a live straight from the battery just to make sure it operated.

 

[tonytoyota]

Hi wot about a full set of seats out of a LBW 90