Discovery 2 seats do go, Eventually!

Work in prgress 

Well here we go here is the landy with the old tired seats.







Here are the Discovery II seats I had just purchased off ebay.





I need to measure the fittings and get ready to strip the new seats so they are able to fit into the defender. First here are the bottoms of the seats before the mod.

Protect the seat with cardboard, as I didn’t want to burn the seats, I then have cut the extra bits to make a flat surface to work to:-





Now i made some mounting bases out of box steel, these are 48cm long and the centres of the seat box holes need to be 44cm centres.



I have angled the ends, to retain strength and also to be able to access the bolts to fit the seats. I have then drilled holes in the seats runners to enable me to bolt then to the box steel.



I will fit the box steel first to ensure I have the seats correctly in position, but i will need to remove the centre cubby box to allow access and room to work, this was only held in by four screws and took about 10 mins to remove.

I will continue this tomorrow, but so far it had only taken me about an hour and a half to get this far.
boxed sections as the seats would of been too high and I wouldn't of got my legs under the Steering wheel, I found this out after I had installed the passenger seat!, The next thing to do is to remove the old seats.



Once the seats are removed, they are only held in by four 13mm bolts, the next part is to mark the holes on the seat box. I have used the rear inside bolt hole and kept the rails as far back as they can go. I have then drilled the new holes and had to get some heavy duty plate to strengthen the floor, I have gone over board, but a 100mm x 100mm plate of 2mm steel plate. I then removed the centre plate covering the gearbox to allow access to the underneath to access the bolts. Once drilled place the seat in and using the original spacers, bolt the seat in.

Here is the picture of the front mount.



an a picture of the rear mount, see I have had to cut the top part to gain access for the socket to tighten up the bolt.



Now the seats are bolted in, check the running of the seat belt, I have placed the passenger seat too close to the door pillar restricting movement as I used the outside holes. So I will have to alter this to use the inside mounting holes.
The seat box has been placed back, however I will need to make another one as this will need to be narrower to cater for the controls on the side of the seat.

Here we are:-



I will next tackle the rear seats, but I have measured and the old seats are 140mm and the discovery rears are 147mm, might get away with it, and I will have to modify the rear mounting to utilise the Discovery locking points.

Then once this is done, i will install central locking to make life easier.