Seat HELP needed

[dwysywd]

Hello all, I am in the process of building my van. I have 2006 Chevy Express 1500 AWD. I have a set of seats out of Ford F-150 Platinum. I want to mount them up front as my captains chairs but I am running into an engineering issue. The ford seat has rivers holding on the bracket. Ok. I can grind those off but getting the ford seat mounted to the Chevy base...now there is the challenge. See photos.

This is the bottom of the Chevy seat and the bracket that came off of it.

 

[45Kevin]

This might be a good time to add swivels under the seat if you have to modify the base anyway.

 

[Scotty D]

I HATE my stock express seats but have not heard about any that are an easy bold on .
Good luck

 

[dwysywd]

So, my buddy is going to fab up something. He is a master at fabricating stuff like this that requires out of the box thinking! As soon as he is done, I will post some pictures.

 

[45Kevin]

Post pics of what you build please.

 

[scottrinne]

I tried using some Ford Freestyle mini van seats in my Express Van. I really liked the grey leather, they had the correct single arm rest location, electric motors, and the price was right. My goal was to use them and fabricate swivel bases into them.

However, I ran into the problem you are running into. Express seats are pedestal seats and the Fords are built completely different. Also, our driver seat has a fuse box under it that I didn’t want to relocate. Long story short: I decided to sell the ford seats and use the stock Chevy seats. I made the passenger seat swivel and went with ‘leather’ seat covers. I would really like to see how you get your seats to work at the correct height...post some photos when they are done!

I don’t have photos of ours, but my wife and I like to edit video montages as our way of scrapbooking...if you want to see the end result, then here you go:

Swivel:

Seat covers:

 

[dwysywd]

I put the ENTIRE thing on hold for a short period. I purchased an complete 5 piece leather conversion set and wanted to see what I got for my $500 before I modify anything. But I started with cutting the brackets off the bottom of the Ford seats so that I can use them. Rob said he could weld grade 8 studs on them for me and make them align with my factory seat base. I am considering a universal swivel using this base HERE. But that is not determined yet. Waiting to see if this Chevy Express conversion van interior has swivel bases yet. Also, I wasn't planning to swivel the driver, but that is definitely an option now b/c I am not putting a rear facing bench behind the 1st row.

 

[Herbie]

If you do decide to add a swivel (or possibly even if not), you may need to consider not using the original GM pedestals at all.

When I put a swivel under the passenger seat in my Astro van (same seats as the Express), it added more than 3" to the height, which put things too close to the ceiling. I ended up leaving out the factory pedestal entirely and building (from scratch) a short set of riser blocks to get the seat/slider/swivel assembly up above the hump in the floor. The driver's side as a computer under there and I would have had to do the same measurements on that side.

Post #64 in my build thread (sig) shows how I solved the problem.

 

[dwysywd]

@Herbie thanks. Good read on your build thread. I like how you solved for X. Cool solution.


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