Custom Seat Box

I have been rebuilding a defender 90 300 tdi over the past year. I wanted to fit Saab seats for a bit more comfort but putting them straight onto the seat box left me sitting too high.

Decided to build a custom seat box which would be as low over the fuel tank as possible giving me a lower mounting height of nearly 3 inches.

I have attached the first picture and will add more once I have the new battery box fabricated and installed.

The plan is to fully fit it, clad it in 1.5 mm galvanised sheeting to make sure it all works, then take off the sheeting before getting it galvanised and then refitting.

Maybe a bit of work, but at the minute it's super strong.

Have now added the new battery box complete with 3 mm galvanised sheet base.

Also have mounted the drivers seat to check all is secure.

As you can see from the picture the front of the seat base is less than 6 inches high, plenty of room to adjust or add extra height through the electric seats.

Have to finish off across the gear box and then start to add the cladding.

More photos

Another photo

Last photo for now

That's looking pretty solid

Interesting mod

I had to lower the height of my seat box when I fitted electric seats, but I just cut around the seat box and lowered the top section inside the bottom section and riveted it together.
But I like what you're doing, now you've got me thinking. My battery is in the back, maybe under seat cubby box?

Crikey that is a proper job! Nice welding too

Tom

As a matter of interest, do you gain any leg room?
I see it's a truck cab and I am always looking for a solution to gaining extra legroom as I am 6ft 3 and as mine is also a truck cab, any solution is better than the standard layout!

You can take out the bulkhead behind the seats and replace with a bar kit to gain leg room

Search 'bulkhead removal bar' for more details

Station House said:

You can take out the bulkhead behind the seats and replace with a bar kit to gain leg room

Search 'bulkhead removal bar' for more details

Click to expand...

But then I would be left with a big hole behind me, which would let water / wind / snow etc. in......



Mine is a Truck Cab...

leg room will be worse as your closer to the floor

JohnM70 said:

But then I would be left with a big hole behind me, which would let water / wind / snow etc. in......



Mine is a Truck Cab...

Click to expand...

Good point well made - missed that

Out of ideas other than converting to van sides as well

Thanks for the comments.

Leg room no better, but it allows me to fit a thicker based seat, which means a bit of comfort. The top of the seat ends up the same height from the floor as the original Defender seat so you end up in the same sitting position.

The benefit is that with the thicker seat, the lower mounting position means that you still have plenty of head room even when sitting on the thicker seat base. If I had mounted on the original seat base my head would have banged off the roof.

I like that! Interesting indeed. Just rebuilt mine last year, wish I had done something like this now as I could have customised the whole lot.

More photos?