Racing/Bucket seats & fitment

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Postby Monty » Mon 12.02.2007, 18:13

No Comment!
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Postby Dico » Mon 12.02.2007, 18:18

Ugh?

Does that mean no? :bonk:
4+ hours stuck in a damp bucket seat with a mad Irishman at the wheel - Deep joy!!!!
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Postby Doug » Mon 12.02.2007, 21:26

looks good except for the color :?
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Postby Monty » Tue 13.02.2007, 00:01

Doug wrote:looks good except for the color :?


Couldn`t get grey :smt019

They do red but the full seat was one colour a bit to bright for me. Want to keep the interior neutral.

Got the passenger seat runners removed, just got to bodge some brackets for runners to new seat. Not sure if to use flat bar or box section :?
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Postby Doug » Tue 13.02.2007, 00:16

square box
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Postby GeoffSmith » Tue 13.02.2007, 00:28

Is it just me or what? Chunder King installs bucket seat! :-D
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Postby Monty » Tue 13.02.2007, 19:12

quote from another thread.

Sy V wrote:Take sheet of 3mm chequer plate. Chop to fit floor pan and fettle to get rid of sharp edges.
Drill holes to correspond with existing mounting holes.
Position seat, drill holes to correspond to mounts/runners.
Remove surplus chequerplate under seat area.
Mount seat to chequer plate.
Mount assembly to car floor pan.



Sy, the 3mm chequer plate u mentioned above is that in steel or Aluminium?

and when u say
Remove surplus chequerplate under seat area.
do u mean remove the center part which is not bolted or did u mean remove any surplus plate on the outer edges?

Was going to use box section steel, but think this could be a better way for me to get these seats to fit the runners.

Cheers
Jay
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Postby Monty » Sun 18.02.2007, 18:46

Removing off the stock runners
It`s possible to remove the runners by undoing the brackets but since the brackets were no use to me i had to do a bit of drilling to seperate the front brackets from the runners.

Pic 1 & 2
Front bracket. Drill the head of the rivet

Pic 3
Undo the bolt to release the rear bracket

Pic 4 & 5
Front Bracket. There`s also a spot weld which needs prising/breaking
Attachments
001 Front mount, drilling rivit head off.jpg
Drilling the head of the rivet
001 Front mount, drilling rivit head off.jpg (37.39 KiB) Viewed 9662 times
002 Front mount, Rivit head removed.jpg
Rivet head removed
002 Front mount, Rivit head removed.jpg (43.31 KiB) Viewed 9659 times
003 Rear bolt.jpg
undoing the rear bracket
003 Rear bolt.jpg (40.84 KiB) Viewed 9662 times
004 Breaking the spot weld on front mount.jpg
breaking the spot weld
004 Breaking the spot weld on front mount.jpg (25.6 KiB) Viewed 9661 times
005 Front mount removed.jpg
Front bracket removed
005 Front mount removed.jpg (39.47 KiB) Viewed 9660 times
006 Runners removed from stock seats.jpg
Runners removed
006 Runners removed from stock seats.jpg (46.14 KiB) Viewed 9659 times
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Postby Monty » Sun 18.02.2007, 19:06

Adapting the stock runners to fit the Cobra seats

To get these to fit i used 4off 30 x 50mm rectangular steel section 390mm in length (£10 from local engineering shop)
Runners to rectangular section = 4off 30mm M8 bolts, nuts and washers.
Rectangular section to Seat = 4off 50mm M8 bolts
Spacers between runners and rectangluar section = 4off 10-15mm (i used large old nuts i found)

I used the exsiting holes in the runners ie the holes at the front were the rivet was removed and the rear were the bracket was removed.

then it was a case of the measuring for the stock runners and the mountiong holes on the seat base, then i realised that the bolts were close together so has to use spacers so they didn`t intefer with the runners.

Infact i had to put the bolts to the runners on the inside of the rectangular section as the were hitting the seat base. As u can imagine not straight forward and the amount of times i had to dismantle everything was doing my head in :evil:
Attachments
Picture 007.jpg
Runners attached to the rectangular section
Picture 007.jpg (50.14 KiB) Viewed 9767 times
Picture 009.jpg
runners attached to seat
Picture 009.jpg (45.32 KiB) Viewed 9656 times
Picture 010.jpg
spacers
Picture 010.jpg (33.19 KiB) Viewed 9655 times
Last edited by Monty on Sun 18.02.2007, 19:31, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Monty » Sun 18.02.2007, 19:11

Ok, i`ve got passenger seat fitted but it wasn`t straight forward. The 1st test fit was tight against the center tunnel but was ok until Dico came round, he sat in it and his half his head was above the windscreen LMAO :lol: so decided to remove the spacers to lower the seat and in doing so it wouldn`t line up with the floor pan holes. So had to re-adjust/drill the mounting brackets :evil: + u can`t reuse the original bolts as there to long :roll:
If u remove the stock spacers u will need to replace the bolts with:-
For inboard 2off 40mm M10
For outboard 2off 45mm M10

From the pic`s u can see that the wings just clears the door :-D
Last edited by Monty on Sun 18.02.2007, 19:47, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Doug » Sun 18.02.2007, 19:27

looks nice -- you could always use flat stock metal instead of the box (to get the seat lower), but be sure you use sufficiently thick metal and proper grade bolts.
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Postby Monty » Sun 18.02.2007, 19:41

Doug wrote:square box


:twisted:

:roll:

actually the runners are quite heavy (especially with the rectangular section) and maybe should of gone for aftermarket type but i was trying to save money :roll:

Stock seat with runners 38lb (17.23kg)
Cobra seat with adapted runners 35lb (15.87kg)
The adapted runners weighed in at 14lb (6.35kg) :shock:

That makes the Cobra seat 21lb (9.52kg)

There is a guy on Ebay who sales aftermarket runners and mounting brackets. But u may still need to add steel to get them to fit :?

search.ebay.co.uk/_W0QQsassZturboQ2dmini
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Postby Elanlover » Thu 17.07.2008, 18:52

Hey Monty, can you get the centre console lid to raise up without hitting the shoulder bolsters? Looks tight for sure..............
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Postby Monty » Thu 17.07.2008, 19:25

Elanlover wrote:Hey Monty, can you get the centre console lid to raise up without hitting the shoulder bolsters? Looks tight for sure..............


Only just, it does hit the shoulders very slightly.

I also had to offset the seats a little outboard as the lower part was rubbing on the center console and was making it difficult to adjust the seat position. Another point, i also put a couple of spacers on the outboard mounting bolts to keep the shoulders away from the door panels :wink:
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Re: Racing/Bucket seats & fitment

Postby Monty » Mon 01.03.2010, 16:20

Now have new Aluminium adaptor plates fitted to replace the box section i used.

Ali adaptor plates 750g per seat
Image

Image

Rebate for the extra thickness on the inboard rear stock runner
Image

stock runners are dam heavy at 3.36kg per seat :twisted:
Image

Bob`s Ali plates have save me just over 2kg per seat :-D

Stock seat with runners 38lb (17.23kg)


The Cobra seat on it`s own is 21lb (9.52kg).
Aluminium adaptor plates 1lb 10oz (750g)
Stock runners 7lb 9oz (3.36kg)
Total weigh per seat 30lb 3oz (13.69kg)



.
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Re: Racing/Bucket seats & fitment

Postby kenich » Mon 01.03.2010, 20:15

Good shout with weigth savings - always a winner :D

What seats do you have installed then? Does bob sell those adapters? Do they fit all Cobra base mounts, or do you have sid mounts?
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Re: Racing/Bucket seats & fitment

Postby Monty » Mon 01.03.2010, 20:55

kenich wrote:Good shout with weigth savings - always a winner :D

What seats do you have installed then? Does bob sell those adapters? Do they fit all Cobra base mounts, or do you have sid mounts?



The seats are Cobra Monaco which i got from ebay (a few years ago now) and are base mounted as you can see in the photo`s. I doubt if they would fit all models of cobra seats.

Bob custom made these adaptor plates for me so you would need to discuss that with him (just remember he has alot of projects on)

Personely i would go for seats without high sides to make it easyer to use the seat belt, ie motorsport seats which are used in the Exige but cost a far few quid.
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Re: Racing/Bucket seats & fitment

Postby abmunro » Mon 01.03.2010, 21:19

I'm looking at getting new seats.

I think I will look at aftermarket runners to try to save weight.

Will try some in a shop before buying.


Only question why did you go for FIA approved?

I was reading on ebay that approval expires on all seats

Cheers

Tony
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Re: Racing/Bucket seats & fitment

Postby kenich » Mon 01.03.2010, 22:02

I thought they might of been Monicos. I love side mounted high sided buckets (even more so with carbon backs!) but as you pointed out the standard seatbelt setup is an issue. when I have time I would like to look into using harnesses so I could install a fixed bucket. Doesn't seem to hard a job to mount seats in the Elan, just tricky working out fixing point for a harness.
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Re: Racing/Bucket seats & fitment

Postby addict » Mon 01.03.2010, 23:34

the runners on the elan seat that were drilled off look identical to the ones used on mk1 astra recaro seats.....
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