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How
to Lower Your Seats
or
Let’s Get Down!
By
David Helland - Club Member #50
 I
recently bought a pair of Beard seats for my Manx and was faced with
the task of installing them in my car. The Beard seats are tube steel
frame seats that have excellent support and a softer ride than the
typical fiberglass bucket seats. This discussion deals with attaching
the Beard seats to the original VW seat rails on the mid-70 and earlier
VW floor pans. The technique used here should also work for the fiberglass
seats with minor modifications to the supporting frame to fit the
mounts on the fiberglass shell.
The
original VW seat rails on the earlier VW floor pans consists of
a pair of triangular shaped pieces of sheet metal that are welded
in the factory to the sheet metal floor pan on each side of the
car. The top edge of the rails have a 1/4 inch wide edge bent over
90 degrees to form a flat surface. The seats hook on to this flat
surface and slide backwards and forwards over it. This low tech
seat attachment mechanism is actually very sturdy and extremely
inexpensive to fabricate (the “people’s car” needed to be cheap).
Even though the mechanism is simple, the alignment of the sliding
seat channels with respect to the seat rails is very critical. If
these rails get bent even 1/8 of an inch, the seats will refuse
to slide on or off the seat rails. This is the point where you get
very mad and break out the sledge hammer.
The
trick to using the original seat rails involves a little trickery
to keep the original seat track alignment. In order to proceed you
will need a pair of original VW seats that can be disassembled so
that the attached seat tracks can be re-used. The seats should slide
back and forth smoothly on the seat rails (a little grease on the
set rails helps). Remove the seat backs and discard them as they
will not be used. Remove the seat covers and springs from the seat
bottoms so that only the oval shaped seat support tubing is remaining.
This assembly should still be able to slide smoothly on and off
the seat rails. If is doesn’t, the seat assembly can be carefully
bent (the seat rails should not be bent unless they are obviously
not straight) until the seat moves freely over the rails.
Now
comes the trick. We really only need the straight seat track sections
on the bottom of the seat assembly for our use on the new seats.
However, if we cut them off now, it will be nearly impossible to
regain the original alignment with the seat rails. So, the trick
is to weld a cross piece between the two bottom seat tracks of the
seat assembly before we cut them off. I used a 2 inch wide piece
of 1/8 inch thick steel to make the cross piece. This piece was
welded in place just above the seat adjustment mechanism (see picture).
With this cross piece securely welded, the two straight sections
on the very bottom of the seat assembly can be cut off. We only
need the portion of tubing that has the seat tracks that slide on
the seat rails. We now have a very low profile seat assembly i.e.
two pieces of steel tubing connected by a flat piece of steel.
The
next thing to do is make a steel tubing frame that attaches to the
bottom of your seats. I used two pieces of EMT steel tubing with
the ends flattened in my vice. The steel tubes are to extend from
the front mounting tab of the seat to the rear mounting tab of the
seat (not side to side). I drilled the flattened ends so that they
can be bolted to the steel tabs on the bottom of the Beard seats.
A steel tubing cross piece (this could also be 2 inch flat stock)
was then welded between the two tubes about 3 inches forward of
the rear mounting tabs (see picture).
This steel frame would need to be modified to fit fiberglass seats.
We
now have two assemblies - one slides on the seat rails (the seat
track frame) and the other bolts to the mounting tabs on the seats
(the seat support frame). They now need to be welded together. Since
the seat rails on the bottom of the floor pan are triangular in
shape (i.e. the front is about 2 inches higher than the rear) the
two frames we just made must have a compensating angle to make the
seats level.
The
seat support frame must be first welded to the 2 inch flat piece
that separates the two rails of the seat track frame. The seat support
frame should extend about 2 inches past the front of the seat track
frame (see picture).
The seat support frame tubing will need to be flattened just below
the spring loaded seat adjustment mechanism to prevent interference.
The two frames should only be tack welded together at the flat stock
to allow adjustment of the final seat angle. Now would be a good
time to temporarily bolt the seats to the frame and slide them into
the car to check the final angle of the seats. Measure how far apart
the rear of the two seat frames must be to obtain the correct seat
angle.
To
attach the rear of the two frames together, two 2 inch square pieces
of the 1/8 inch thick flat stock must be cut. These square pieces
are then welded to the rear of the seat track frame and then to
the seat support frame at the correct height measured earlier (see
picture).
Before the finished frame is bolted to the seats, the seat adjustment
handle must be extended so that it will not interfere with the front
of the seat support frame. I did this by cutting off the handle
and then making it 2 inches longer by welding on a piece of 1/4
inch steel rod. I then welded the handle back in place.
Now
bolt the frame to the seats and slide the finished product on to
the seat rails in the car (see picture).
This process puts the seats at the perfect height for a standard
Manx type car. The top of your head should be below the top of the
windshield (this is a great advantage to keep your hat on in the
wind). If you want to lower your windshield for a more low profile
look, you will probably need to remove the original VW seat rails
and bolt the seats directly to the floor pan.
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