Posted by Willy-N on Monday, March 06, 2006 at 11:14AM :
In Reply to: Dodge Dakota Seats(people who have one installed) posted by Kevin in Ohio on Monday, March 06, 2006 at 9:23AM :
This was for a Ford Ranger seat but I am sure the Dakota Seat would have allmost the same mounts on it. The nice part is you do not ruin the original seat base doing it this way. I copied this from the arcives when I did mine.
Spent some time working on the seat brackets today. You have to cut the original brackets on the new seat all down to 1 1/2 inches tall. Then get 1- 2 inch angle iron cut at 53 1/2 and another one cut at 44 inches 3/16 inch thick. These are the main cross brackets to bolt the seats to the original PW Seat frame. Long one goes across the rear angle down and is bolted in place by the door frame on the flat metal going from the PWs seat frame to the door Jam sides. This fits flush on top of the raised old PW seat frame and also goes behind it. The Front 44 inch one goes on top of the old PW seat frame angle sticking up and is bolted to the lip in several places. Then 4- 18 inch long 2 inch 1/8" angle iron peices are welded flush to the front cross Angle and over the back one to these to match the new seat mounts. The outside ones are 40 1/2 inches apart and centerd on the front mount. The 2 inside ones are welded to match the New seat mounts. This gives you 1 1/4 inches of room between the seat and the door. It will allow you to remove the 2 seats easy as a set and make them solidly mounted and not cut up or modifie the Original frame except a few holes for bolts. This Bracket is for the Ford Ranger pick/up truck split bucket bench seat and also allows you to still adjust the seat and keep it at factory height. Sorry if this was boring but I thought I would give you the information I figured out to save you some time if you were thinking of doing the same thing. Mark H.
I wish I had the pictures of this but I can't find them right now. I will keep looking. When I made the mount I bolted it to the original base first to make it easy to install when I put it on the seat outside the truck later. I sat the seat on the mount to make sure the seats brackets were at the right angle and marked them. Then I took the whole works out and welded the seats mounts to the base mount. Then the seat when back in as a unit and was real easy to install. Mark H.
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