Late Model Seats into your Classic Ride

For a couple hundred bucks on EBay you can pickup some late model Mustang seats and bolt them into your classic stang. Fed-Ex dropped them off today at 4pm by 7pm they were in the car ready to use.

Seats fresh off the Fed-Ex truck from a 2001 Mustang convertible. They are black but the flash makes them look brighter.





Old seats next to new seats. Note: The camera flash makes the new seats look lighter than they really are.


Remove seat tracks from new seats as well as old seats. You will use your tracks on the new seats.




I used the mounting hole on the top for both seats. The bottom hole will need to be drilled in a new location and use a nut & bolt to secure. Make sure to keep the tracks level when drilling the new mounting hole. The track stud center to center is 14 1/8"





The driver seat is a little more difficult because the track is recessed to fit the power seat track. You need to use a 1" spacer on the top & a 3/4" spacer on the bottom. You still use the original mounting hole on top with a 2" M8 bolt. Like the passenger seat, you will need to drill a new mounting hole on the bottom.








Once the tracks are bolted in you can hook up your spring for moving the seat forward and back. Note, you need to bend the track adjusting handle a little until it clears the front of the seat.


Here are a couple pictures of the finished product. These seats are so much more comfortable than the orginal low back seats. Overall I'm very happy with how easy and good looking this swap was.
Enjoy




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Very nice!

I agree nice swap. I would be a little more inclined to use grade 8 hardware. You dont really want them suckers snapping from a fender bender.

Originally Posted by trashline

I agree nice swap. I would be a little more inclined to use grade 8 hardware. You dont really want them suckers snapping from a fender bender.

I'd be more worried about the studs on the stock seat tracks pulling through the floor board.

I dont think that will happen unless your seat platforms are rotted out. They are reinforced with a thick piece of steel under the sheet metal you see and go from the front to the back.

I just realized you used metric hardware for the newer style seats. Did you use 8.8 class bolts? the picture shows them but is hard to see.

Originally Posted by trashline

Did you use 8.8 class bolts? the picture shows them but is hard to see.

Yes, since I used the front mounting holes in the seat they have a nut welded to the other side, so I stuck with metric. Im so ignorant when it comes to metric bolts, are 8.8 as strong as grade 8?

I put some '96 Cougar seats in my Montego...it was a little trickier than yours...I think... A lot better than the old bench seat!!

JEGS has some really nice aftermarket seats that I wanna try putting in my Torino. I think they'll look perfect because the finish in the stitching isn't too different from the stock vinyl on the back seat. I wouldn't want the new seats to acutally look like "new" "aftermarket" seats and to keep the look as restomod as I could without making it obvious I upgraded them.

IIRC class 8.8 equal to grade 5. grade 8 is equal to class 10.?? they even sell over that. I had to use a class 15 series bolt for my exhaust housings on my turbo coupe

I want the new Mach 1 seats in my old mach 1. They look fairly close to original. Nice swap for your coupe too. My seats are old and broken down so this would be a neat swap for me.