UncleMaz

Have a set of early seats that I would like to install in my MY85 until I can afford to have the sport seats recovered. Will they plug and play? Below is the early seat. Thanks.

fbarnhill

They are not plug and play. I just did the reverse. I had to use the pig tails from the new seats and wire them into the early harness. You will probably have to do the same in reverse. The wireing harness was plenty long enough. I left myself enough room to reverse the connections if I ever needed to. Those seats look great.

Best of luck,

UncleMaz

Thanks. Sounds doable.

hernanca

What about the inner seat belt mount?

I have a pair of '81 Euro seats, and the inner seat belt mount, IIRC, was to the central tunnel, whereas my 86.5 seats have the inner seat belt mount on the seat itself.

fbarnhill

It was an easy job. However, the first attempt failed because I didn't realize that the rail next to the tourque tube tunnel was longer than the one on the outside. When I couldn't get them lined up the same, I thought it wouldn't fit. The next day with more light, I realized the solution. If I remember correctly, the early seats just had one power wire and one ground. The newer seats had 2 of each along with a green wire. What I did was to wire them before actually mounting to make sure all the swithches worked as they should. Was a piece of cake once I figured out the rail issue. The rear bolts on the seat rails are a little easier to get to than the later ones. Raise the seat as high as it will go to give you more room. I had to use an allen wrench on the rear of the early seats while the ratchet worked well on the later ones.

Let me know if you need anything elase and I will be glad to help,

fbarnhill

Oh, I forgot to tell you this. I had to use the early seat belt female connector with the newer seats because the male connector was wider. The early seats attach to the side of the tunnel while the later seats have them attached to the side of the seat. This may cause more of an issue for you than it did for me. I had the luxery of having the connection already on the tt tunnel. I kind of doubt your car will have it and I am not sure if the newer ones can be fitted to the side of the early seats.

Sorry that just slipped my mind until Carlos mentioned it.

UncleMaz

Thanks Frank. Your description seems more than adequate. As Carlos mentions above, was there a provision to mount the early female seat belt on the tunnel? As my car is 2 hours away, I have no way of checking from where I sit. I do have the necessary early seat belts. Thanks.

hernanca

Glad I could help some.

Since Frank went in the other direction (later seat in an earlier car), he already had the tunnel mounted female part, so he may not know about that.

Not much further help from me, but my plan was to go the same direction you are going (early seat ('81) in a later car ('86.5)) - love the early seat style. But I never did do it, and so I never did find out whether there was provision in the 86.5 tunnel, for mounting the early inner (female) part. There is some thick insulation there, under the carpet, and I was not going to cut it to find out until I was ready to do do the seat swap.

I did take some rough measurements of the mounting point found on the tunnel of another (already stripped) '81, in case I needed it. I will have to dig around to find those measurements.

UncleMaz

Thanks Carlos. I will be at the car's side later this week and will report back on whether or not there is one if someone does not weigh in first.

Also, I see Frank is selling his car. Those seats look fantastic. I hope all health issues are soon resolved and that you get a good price for that beauty.

hernanca

Just checked out Frank's e-bay ad, and forwarded to someone that may be interested. That is a great looking OB, and the later seats do look very good in it. Good job, Frank! I am sorry to hear about the health concerns, but I hope you enjoy enough progress on your "list", to enjoy the process of going through your list..

fbarnhill

Thanks Carlos. It is just a bad form of arthitis in the RA family. It isn't going to kill me but will just attempt to rob me of the things I like to do. My bucket list project is the 86.5. It needs a new engine and I already have one. I just want to rebuild it before installing it. The project keeps me getting up and doing things when I realy don't feel like getting up.

I intended to drive that OB forever and thus did the work on it with that in mind. The last thing I ever wanted to do was to do a job twice.

hernanca

Glad to hear it won't kill you, Frank. Cool approach to motivation!

Black28/Michael, I look forward to hearing your findings, or from any others that may chime in on whether the 85+ cars still have the tunnel mount points for the female seat belt part, like the earlier cars do.

UncleMaz

By next weekend for sure.

UncleMaz

No provisions on tunnel for female buckle.

hernanca

Bummer! But good to know.

So, maybe some racers, or restorers, can chime in - the ones that have stripped the early cars (up through '84) all the way down to where they can see the mount point and any reinforcement it may have. (I have not found my rough drawings yet.)

Or, (maybe better) find out the requirements for seat belt mount points for the various race sanctioning bodies. I seem to recall something about metal reinforcement plates on one side, or maybe both sides, of the mounting hole, if that hole is in sheet metal. Also important, is WHERE that mount point is located, in relation to the body, and the direction of the most likely expected forces in the case of an accident.

And, of course, if you still want to pursue it, after figuring out what needs to be done, will it require accessing the tunnel from underneath? If so, will you have to drop the exhaust? Torque Tube?

Or, how about a nice set of seat covers!