New Seats, Phaton S3

[Mark Bagnall]

Started fitting my new seats in my "new" Phaeton S3. As I would like a little more rearward travel I was pleased my S3 already has a 5 link setup. Unfortunately on close inspection back in my garage I found the links are longer than typical in Duttons with the front mounting where the leaf springs would normally mount!

So my plan to remove the moulded box behind the seats is not straightforward. 

A couple of realistic options - either move the mounts sideways, their might be enough access for welding without body off. Alternatively try and squeeze a little more room by trimming the box and take out the space between the moulding and metalwork.

I'm trying the later as I want to be back on the road this year.

The picture shows first cut out to see if I can liberate enough space.  The photo rotated in upload - up is left in the picture.

I think this will be enough for now, The seats should mount as far back as is sensible with the existing seat belt mounts.  I had originally hoped to be able to move the seat right back to ease entry as someone suggested earlier (sorry I can't find who wrote that comment) but this looks doubtful.

I have runners from the original seats but the mechanism is tall and the new seats are flat on the bottom so I would need a lot of framework for clearance and I would rather have a lower mounting.

Does anyone have experience of low profile runners?

Mark

[Mark Bagnall]

Thanks Graham. I'm loose fitting seats at the moment and will bear in mind the possibility of narrowing the propshaft tunnel. I think the steel is a good idea, I'll have a close look at what I have, there is some aluminium over the central part but not sure if it's on top of the fibreglass.
Will post more photos as I progress

[James Doulton]

I fitted replacement seats in my Legerra. They are C-990-Baby-Cub Seats that I got from Midland Wheels. They are very narrow (much narrower than me!) and also cheap. They also supplied the low profile runners to go with them which are about 1" thick. The runners work okay but there is a little slack in them and the seats are not as rigidly mounted as I would like. The back rest is fixed, which is only an issue if you want to stow stuff behind the seat.

[Adrian Southgate]

I still have the original seats in the green one, I think they are corbeau or cobra cub or somesuch. They are on standard depth flat runners but I used 1" ally spacers to keep the steel runners off the possibly damp or wet carpet (lets face it, its a Dutton) The extra inch allows more travel in the runners before the seat base hits the body as the body is tapered slightly. Obviously won't work for lanky gits :)

Those seats are a good price James. Just a shame they don't have a flip forward device fitted.

[Mark Bagnall]

Slow progress, I must be too soft, the colder weather puts me off from my drafty garage. I fitted the passenger seat as far back as possible, and I still had my shins on the dashboard so I need to move seats further back. After trying seats in different positions I decided to move the top link mounting point outboard to free up a load of space. So far I've cut the mount away, trimmed the bracket and discovered an additional, and very useful, seat belt mount. Re- welding comes next.
I did buy a set of low profile runners for the drivers seat from eBay that seem good.
I'll add pictures later.
On a side note, does anyone know a way of uploading photos into the discussion from a tablet (ipad) so they appear within the text? I can load a file from my iPad but it then needs a reader to click on the link. When I'm on a PC I can paste a picture into the text. I am using the tablet browser in desktop simulation mode but still no joy. Anyone any ideas?