Full bench seat to buckets

[1987cp]

Got a question for anyone who's removed a full bench seat in favor of either a split bench or buckets. I was looking at the floorboard (top and bottom) in the '81 and found that all four of the forward seat-mount bolts appear to be already present, but at the back only the two outer studs seem to be present. Since I haven't yet removed the seat and looked under the carpet, for all I know there could already be a socket there to thread a stud or bolt into. What is the usual solution for adding the two remaining seat mounting points on a bench-seat car?

[DuceAnAHalf]

My car had/has the split bench, there are four bolts per seat. id imagine that the other two nuts are already in the floor pan, would have costed extra to have two different floor pans for production

[1987cp]

Yeah, that's what I'm used to dealing with, is the split bench design with eight bolts total. Sounds like I might just have to find a good time to peek under the carpet and see what I can see!

[murphmobile2]

Should get a pair of buckets out of a Thunderbird, lol. That's what I'm doing as long as the person decides they are gonna scrap the car, lol.

[1987cp]

That sounds fun. I'd originally wanted a set of Mark VII seats before these tweed Mustang buckets came up for cheap an hour away. Now I'm thinking they should go in the two-door instead of the wagon because they're pretty decent and they came out of a two-door car anyway.

[torquelover]

I take it the under body isn't visible enough to see if the floor has the fittings/holes you need? On my car you can see the ground when the bolts are removed.

[murphmobile2]

Definately put them in the two door...

[1987cp]

I take it the under body isn't visible enough to see if the floor has the fittings/holes you need? On my car you can see the ground when the bolts are removed.

The front bolts are visible from underneath, so I know it was fitted with all four up front. The rear mounting points (studs) attach to a raised point in the floorpan that isn't visible from underneath, thus my uncertainty about what resides under the carpet. Come to think of it, if I keep that carpet I'll have to cut it there anyway ... guess I could just do a little archaeological digging with the ol' utility knife .....

Definately put them in the two door...

[Archangel]

Mike, my seats are attached with bolts to the floorpan, both the stock split bench and the SXT buckets (as I re-used the power sliders). Every Panther with split bench I've seen has been like that, bolts through the sliders and the nuts are part of the floorpans. Bet yours has the holes for the extra two bolts, just covered with carper (and likely filled with rubber plugs).

[torquelover]

Mike, my seats are attached with bolts to the floorpan, both the stock split bench and the SXT buckets (as I re-used the power sliders). Every Panther with split bench I've seen has been like that, bolts through the sliders and the nuts are part of the floorpans. Bet yours has the holes for the extra two bolts, just covered with carper (and likely filled with rubber plugs).

+1

[1987cp]

Say Ivan, one of the problems I ran into in mounting the bucket seats on my original '87 seat rails was the fact that the seat rails are curved on top and the bottoms of the newer seats are flat. I tried a piece of square tubing under the front, which resulted in the seat leaning way too far back, but the current version with the tube in back has the seat too high. What was your experience with this issue?

[Dave84]

My Zephyr was like that when I converted bench to buckets, the studs were missing but the holes were there. I had to pull the carpet out (had to anyway cuz it was wrecked) and use a clip and a bolt from a bumper to hold down the seat track.

[Archangel]

Say Ivan, one of the problems I ran into in mounting the bucket seats on my original '87 seat rails was the fact that the seat rails are curved on top and the bottoms of the newer seats are flat. I tried a piece of square tubing under the front, which resulted in the seat leaning way too far back, but the current version with the tube in back has the seat too high. What was your experience with this issue?

My experience - same as yours, seats won't fit without getting creative... Which in my case came in the form of grade-8 bolts and an extra nut between the seat's flat bottom and the Panther's curved slider - bolts come down from the seat, the nut secures them to the seat so they become like studs, then seat is dropped onto the sliders (with some washers for load distributing of course, after all the sliders are aluminum), and there's a nut under the slider securing it all together. Couldn't have done it much differently anyways, as the Panther seats have bolts that screw in the seat iself, wheres my SXT seats have no provisions for such setup - ideally I'd have welded in actual studs, but it works like that too. IIRC the bolts I used are 1/4", and with the nuts as spacers the middle of the seat rail touches the middle of the slider rail a tiny bit (which is really not an issue).

[Heretic]

I have some severly customized buckets in my 85.. When the weather breaks I will take pictures. I used some washers and had to drill holes in the bottom of the seats for the wider panther rails. I am also going to change the passenger side to a power seat setup as well, and custom mount the controls some way when I get the time, as well as run power for the power lunbar controls on them. Right now I am too busy paying off debt to finish this or the engine/trans project I have started.

Buckets = teh win fo sho!!!!

[1987cp]

I like the idea of customized buckets. Cheap-looking grey tweed somehow doesn't cut it if the interior is blue or red.