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There have been lots of threads about fitting different front seats in the Defender but the ones I have looked at have generally been of the "what seats will fit in my Defender?" variety. Haven't found any that go into detail about how to fit them.
I've spent the last few days fitting Impreza WRX seats in the front of mine and thought I'd share how I did it.
Firstly, here are the seats in question, sourced locally for only £40:
They're a bit rough but servicable. Started by taking the passenger seat completely apart.
Thought I'd also take the covers off for cleaning but having taken the seat base cover off I decided it was much more trouble than it was worth.
Then I cut all the bracketry off the seat rails except the seat belt retainer using an angle grinder.
Then I fitted the rails back onto the bare seat base. Just popping the base in and out of the car while measuring and drilling is much easier than doing it with the whole seat.
While lining the seat up in the car it became apparent that the WRX seat rails are exactly the same width on the seat as the Land Rover ones. This made fitting them really easy.
In the picture below you can see the rear of one seat rail on the original rear seat bolt. There is a slot cut in the back of the rail so it just slides back over the bolt. Later I used some oversize nuts and washers to raise the back of the rail so it would slide back over the lip in the body.
Here you can see both rails fitted without the seat base for clarity. The holes in the front of the rails, where the mounting brackets were rivetted on, were drilled out to accept M13 bolts. Bolts were passed through the holes facing down and two nuts fitted to space the rail from the floor. Where the bolt ends touched the floor were marked out and then drilled. The front bolts then pass through the floor and nuts and oversized washers secure them underneath.
In the next picture I've loosely assembled and fitted the seat to try it out for fit and comfort. It does fit and it is comfortable.
The seat base needed some repairs as the outside raised bit was split. I sprayed loads of carpet glue into the split and then stuck some strips of cloth over the split and allowed it to dry overnight.
Once it was all dry I then fitted the cover back on, spraying the base with carpet glue as I went along. I then sat on it for ten minutes or so to make the cloth stick to the base. It worked a treat but was a real faff.
I then finally fitted the seat base into the car, then fitted the back to the seat and fitted all the plastic trim back on.
Doing the drivers side was exactly the same but without the faff of taking off the seat cover.
Here they are both fitted. It's pretty comfortable and are much better than the previous seats as these are adjustable, where the old ones were fixed in position.
And one more thing: The seat belt retainers on the WRX seats are compatible with the LR seat belts so I removed the floor mounted seat belt retainers as it's easier to put the belt on using the seat mounted ones.
I've spent the last few days fitting Impreza WRX seats in the front of mine and thought I'd share how I did it.
Firstly, here are the seats in question, sourced locally for only £40:
They're a bit rough but servicable. Started by taking the passenger seat completely apart.
Thought I'd also take the covers off for cleaning but having taken the seat base cover off I decided it was much more trouble than it was worth.
Then I cut all the bracketry off the seat rails except the seat belt retainer using an angle grinder.
Then I fitted the rails back onto the bare seat base. Just popping the base in and out of the car while measuring and drilling is much easier than doing it with the whole seat.
While lining the seat up in the car it became apparent that the WRX seat rails are exactly the same width on the seat as the Land Rover ones. This made fitting them really easy.
In the picture below you can see the rear of one seat rail on the original rear seat bolt. There is a slot cut in the back of the rail so it just slides back over the bolt. Later I used some oversize nuts and washers to raise the back of the rail so it would slide back over the lip in the body.
Here you can see both rails fitted without the seat base for clarity. The holes in the front of the rails, where the mounting brackets were rivetted on, were drilled out to accept M13 bolts. Bolts were passed through the holes facing down and two nuts fitted to space the rail from the floor. Where the bolt ends touched the floor were marked out and then drilled. The front bolts then pass through the floor and nuts and oversized washers secure them underneath.
In the next picture I've loosely assembled and fitted the seat to try it out for fit and comfort. It does fit and it is comfortable.
The seat base needed some repairs as the outside raised bit was split. I sprayed loads of carpet glue into the split and then stuck some strips of cloth over the split and allowed it to dry overnight.
Once it was all dry I then fitted the cover back on, spraying the base with carpet glue as I went along. I then sat on it for ten minutes or so to make the cloth stick to the base. It worked a treat but was a real faff.
I then finally fitted the seat base into the car, then fitted the back to the seat and fitted all the plastic trim back on.
Doing the drivers side was exactly the same but without the faff of taking off the seat cover.
Here they are both fitted. It's pretty comfortable and are much better than the previous seats as these are adjustable, where the old ones were fixed in position.
And one more thing: The seat belt retainers on the WRX seats are compatible with the LR seat belts so I removed the floor mounted seat belt retainers as it's easier to put the belt on using the seat mounted ones.
