HankN

Does anyone know how to get some more leg room on the pasenger side of a 88 911 Carrea. My wife is very uncomfortable on long trips whch is a bummer. The car has electric seats with manual fore and aft adjustment. Taking out the foot board really does not help. I need to move the seat back several inches. Any advise on how to do this?

Hank with unhappy wife

Teutonics

Are you sure the seat is traveling all the way back on the seat rails? That's a complaint I have not heard before. I have a subwoofer behind my passenger seat, and although a *little* tight, I can sit relatively comfortably in the passenger seat (I'm 6'2").

A couple of things (random thoughts) you might want to try that may help (may have done already?). I've done these on several of my cars (on the driver's side) to give myself more legroom:

Remove the seat and clean/regrease the rails. There may be some obstruction caught up in the dirt-collecting, 15 year-old grease that is keeping the seat from moving all the way back. Make sure all of the "slack" in the mounting is taken up towards the back before tightening all bolts.

Lower the rear of the seat as far as it will go, then raise just the front. This will bend your wifes legs (making them shorter), yet still supporting her legs.

You could probably move the seat back on the mounts to the second attachment hole at the rear of the seat rail (drilling new hole in mount for the front and "sandwiching" mount for last bolt, picture below). You could even move to the third hole with only one bolt at the rear (on each side), but the concern with this would be safety (of keeping the seat attached) should you ever be in wreck. Maybe a temporary solution only for long highway drives?



The most severe action would be to have the mounts cut out and rewelded farther back. (I had mine cut out and re-welded lower for more head room, modification completed in pic above).

Good luck in your quest.

HankN

Thanks. The idea of working with seat tilt may help. I am quite sure the seat is moviing as far as it can now. Would my 88 have the same set up as your 85. I have been lead to believe it may not. I see two rails/tracks and one Allen head screw at each end of the rails. If there are more, I do not see how to get to them. If I have mounts like I see in your photo, it should be possible to put some 1/4 inch bar extensions on top of them and then bold the rails to them so I can extend the whole seat back as much as I want.

I looked for five years to find an 88 or 89 with no sun roof so head room would be adequate, and it is. I tried to sit in the pasenger seat, and immediately felt what my wife was griping about. It was torture for me. I have plenty of driver leg room. I am not far from you. NE TN.

Thanks in advance for any more insight.

Hank

r911

you can alter the pedal bos too

hoffman912

take a saw and trim her legs down a bit

geo.aigel

Modifying the mounting points of the seat rail will be the way to go if you run out of adjustment towards the back. There are many ways to do this and it isn't something where you can hurt much even if you start cranking up your own mig. You can also pull the seat and have her sit in the back.

I just modified my seat mounting to get head room. I added a metal strap behind the factory brackets to drill extra holes further back and left the rails out to gain room. Did the trick and I fit with helmet on. Only problem now is that short people can't drive my car any more, but that's not my problem. My wife is 6', so she fits fine...

G

Teutonics

I *think* the mounts are the same, but I'm not certain. I know that the mounts changed from the SC's to the Carrera's.

There should be one allen screw at the front of each rail, and two at the back. You have to move the seat all the way forward to get to the "inside" bolt at the back, and even then it's not easy to get to.

The bar extension is a great idea, and should be okay in a non-sunroof car. I did that exact thing on my BMW (using one-inch square steel tubing) where legroom was an issue but headroom wasn't (exact opposite of my 911!).

You'll have to try to make it down for some of the Atlanta events, there's quite an active Porsche community here.

HankN

I can see that the one Allen head screw is a bear to get to. I'm thinking of using JB Weld to fix a short stub of an allen wench inside a disposable 1/4" drive socket to get at all the screws. See any thing wrong with this ideal?

Also, can the seat back be removed easily? Seems like it would be a lot easier to get the seat bottom out without the back attached to it.

These are electric seat, and I am assuming there is plenty of free play in the wires to let me move the whole thing back a couple inches.

The help I am getting here is great. Except for the one to cut my wife's legs off. She objected to that suggestion.

Teutonics

I can't remember exactly how I got to the inside hex bolt, but I do remember that I had to release the seatback and tip it forward. I may have also used the front/rear height adjustments to get more working room, but don't remember what the front/rear height combination was.

If you can find a ball-end hex wrench, that will help significantly. I think I used a hex socket (retail version of what you described ) with a u-joint and extension for clearance.

There should be enough wire to position the seat back farther (in the picture above you can see the power seat wire draped over the Motronic box.... plenty long). Raise the seat all the way up and you should be able to see how much slack you have at full front/rear positions.

ZCAT3

Your driver and passenger seats should go back the same amount. If you are comfortable in the driver's seat but not the passenger seat, then the passenger seat is not sliding back as far as it should. I am also 6'2" with long legs and fit comfortably in the passenger seat. Is your wife that tall?

Assuming you do not have heated seats, the seat backs do come off. Just remove the side plastic pieces and it will be obvious. This is not necessary to remove the seats however. Assuming your seats do slide back, you need to set them as high as they will go and then slide them back. At that point the allen bolts in front are accessible. If they are not, then you have discovered your problem - the seat is not sliding all the way back. In that case I would start looking under the seat with a hand mirror to see if there is something caught in one of the rails.

By the way, I believe the tech manual has a preferred order for removing the allen bolts to get the seats off the sliders - I think it is rear bolts first. In any case it can be a pain - here is a thread discussing this (among other things): https://rennlist.com/forums/showthre...highlight=seat

HankN

Bill, I understand your point. However, if you will check, you will see that the foot board on the passenger side is much closer to the seat than on the driver side. There are some components mounted there under the plywood cover. When all the way back, both seats are even, and the front Allen screws are accesable. The rears are a bear to get to, but suggestions already made should alter this and allow removal of the seat so mods can be made in seat track mounting.

For what ever it is worth, John P (forget exact last name) who is the PCA car body expert let me know he agrees with my wife (and me) that the passenger leg room is poor. My wife has long legs. Lots more passenger leg room in her Honda CRV. (however it really sucks on power and going up hills). This whole leg room thing may also have to do with age. We elders may not be as flexible as you kids. Just as I can not fit in a sun roof car, and others have no problem with it.

Armed with all the help I have been given, I can takle this job right after my knee surgery next week. Or supervise and let my son do it. Now, that sounds good to me.

Thanks fellas. I'll be back if I get stuck, or come back with how the solution worked out.

ZCAT3

Hank - I have taken the seats out of my 87 911 several times and the only real issue I have seen is making sure that the order the bolts are removed is correct - otherwise you cannot get at 2 of them. I have heard many nightmare stories, however, about people rounding out the allen heads so be careful with that. I can't imagine this will be a very fun project after knee surgery, but good luck.

jet911

Yep, be careful. I had to remove the passengers seat to install a new seat adjustment switch. The allen bolts have very shallow depth, which means that if you don't keep the hex wrench exactly perpendicular to the bolt, it will strip very easily. I stripped two of the six. I had to get a dremmil (sp?) tool and cut a slot across the head to screw out the bolt. I went to the P-dealer and spoke with a mechanic who gave me a couple of bolts with deeper however higher heads. The problem is the seat may not pass over them when installed. Mine did - barely (actually they brush the top of the bolts so I filed them down a bit). He told me the shallow ones were not available any longer (don't know if that's true or not).

Good luck as it is a PITA!