67BlackBird
08-10-2008, 02:10 PM
I bought a pair of 2002 BMW M3 convertable seats to get a 3-point seatbelt and headrests in my 67 'Bird. Looks like the seat part will fit, but the brackets on the bottom are about an inch and a half too wide to fit between the trans tunnel and the rocker panel hump. The brackets are also too long, but look like they could be cut to fit onto that hump for seat mounting on the floorboard where the stock seats bolt.
I did some partial exploratory dissasembly and those seats are WAY more complex than I thought. (With a lovely combination of metric and torx fasteners !) I put it back together and will go get a manual to see if there's an easy way to pull the seat part from the motors.
Options are
1. remove motors and replace with some kind of bracketry, possibly the seat frames from the stock Firebird seats?
2. remove some of the brackets, making the seat narrower to fit in the car and loose some "power seat" functionality, again, fabricate brackets.
3. Modify the rocker panel hump to allow the seats to fit.
4. Can the whole thing, put the seats on ebay and put the money to a 5-speed!
I am also interested in the strength of the mounting brackets for the seats. If I run into something at speed the seat hight is a long lever to transfer force to the rear seat hold-down, it will need to be very sturdy.
BTW these seats are heavy, I'd say 3 times the weight of the stockers!!
Will update as I work on 'em. If you have done this or have any ideas on how to do it, I'd love to hear 'em!!
I did some partial exploratory dissasembly and those seats are WAY more complex than I thought. (With a lovely combination of metric and torx fasteners !) I put it back together and will go get a manual to see if there's an easy way to pull the seat part from the motors.
Options are
1. remove motors and replace with some kind of bracketry, possibly the seat frames from the stock Firebird seats?
2. remove some of the brackets, making the seat narrower to fit in the car and loose some "power seat" functionality, again, fabricate brackets.
3. Modify the rocker panel hump to allow the seats to fit.
4. Can the whole thing, put the seats on ebay and put the money to a 5-speed!
I am also interested in the strength of the mounting brackets for the seats. If I run into something at speed the seat hight is a long lever to transfer force to the rear seat hold-down, it will need to be very sturdy.
BTW these seats are heavy, I'd say 3 times the weight of the stockers!!
Will update as I work on 'em. If you have done this or have any ideas on how to do it, I'd love to hear 'em!!