Moving drivers seat back

[Gnarvan]

Edited to rename conduit hanger Unistrut

My original plan was to use the Unistrut under the seat base. The problem I ran into was the nuts and studs in the floor are offset so one piece of Unistrut wouldn't line up. See the top photo on the previous post to see the offset.

I just finished the job. I had a HUGE smile on my face as soon as I jumped into the drivers seat. What a difference. The job took about an hour and a half to move the seat up and back an inch and a half. I didn't paint the Unistrut yet. I'll live with it for a week or so and see how it does. I may head down to NW Quadvan and see what kind of OEM takeout seats they have available. If they have two I like I'll pull the Unistrut out and paint it when I swap seats. I may decide to have some welding done. I could box in some of the open sides of the Unistrut and even tie the two peices of Unistrut together with a cross brace of some kind. I did leave enough room to move the seat back farther if necessary but I don't think I'll need to.

Photos of the semi finished job

[Ford_6L_E350]

Unistrut is pretty strong, you probably don't need any additional bracing.

But, I would suggest you angle cut the front of the strut and round the corners to prevent bloody shins.

Mike

[carringb]

I agree. Unistrut is amazingly strong for what it is. They even have Fall Protection systems that work with the stuff.

You might want to try Van Specialties in L.O. for a base. They do all the interior stuff.

[regist1]

BTW, I have a set of 2007 factory seat bases that someone can have for the cost of shipping.

[Gnarvan]

I picked up a couple of used seats today. It seems not all seats are created equal. The bolt pattern on the seats I picked up were 1" narrower than my stock seats. I'm guessing when they changed seat bases in 1997 they also changed the bolt pattern on the seat where it mounts to the base. Does anyone know if the bolt pattern where the base mounts to the floor changed also? I'm betting it did.

While I had the seat off I painted the unistrut. I also swapped out the passengers seat for the drivers seat since the passengers seat was in better shape. No problem since they don't have arm rests.

Picture of the finished project