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beetle front seat mounts

Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2016 11:36 am
by JHHeiger
So i picked up a set of pretty clean set Subaru bucket seats to install in my 1962 Beetle. The drivers seat even has power adjustment.

Problem is melding the new seats with the beetle front floor mount and hoping to find a manufactured replacement seat bracket to use as a starting point

Has any used a replacement seat mount from say CIP that was a suitable starting point

J

Re: RE: beetle front seat mounts

Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2016 9:49 pm
by BAJA-IT
JHHeiger wrote:So i picked up a set of pretty clean set Subaru bucket seats to install in my 1962 Beetle. The drivers seat even has power adjustment.

Problem is melding the new seats with the beetle front floor mount and hoping to find a manufactured replacement seat bracket to use as a starting point

Has any used a replacement seat mount from say CIP that was a suitable starting point

J

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Re: beetle front seat mounts

Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2016 10:27 pm
by Marc
The SCAT ProCar seat mounts fit well, but they're too tall for what you're doing. I think they intended them for racing-style (thin cushion) seats, when I used them with SCAT's "Pro-90" seats I ended up sitting at least two inches taller than in a stock seat. My Bug was a `69 but the brackets they sent me looked like the 81384 & 81385 on this page (the adjuster rails attached with capscrews that went into the ends of the thin tubes on each side). The ones pictured for `56-`70 here (81380 and 81381) look completely different than what I had, don't know it they've changed the design or the pictures are wrong. Anyway, mine bolted to existing holes in the stock VW tracks with four 8mm bolts/nuts washers and were quite secure, but had to be cut down/welded to get the height right.
http://www.bugstuffonline.com/index.php ... urers_id=4

From the looks of the pictures at CIP1 those EMPI brackets require drilling through the floorboards, not quite as elegant as the SCAT ones but I guess if your stock tracks were in poor condition (or the flimsy ones that come on the cheap replacement floorpans) that might be preferred. The EMPIs come in two heights, too - pretty sure you'd want the "low-profile 4 inch".

If you want to cut the stock tracks out you could use these universal base brackets (on sale at Summit): https://www.summitracing.com/parts/sum-g1151
...along with some slider tracks like these: https://www.summitracing.com/parts/SUM-G1153/

Those slider tracks look a lot like the stock ones on the bench seat of my `77 Ford P/U, you might find something like that at the Pick-and-Pull yard.

Re: beetle front seat mounts

Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2016 11:44 pm
by Piledriver
Do not hesitate to cut the stock rails out on any pre-73 model, unless the car is a trailer only show queen.

VW redesigned them for the 73+ models for very, very good reason.
(...and they used the new design with few mods for 25+ years and may still, I have Mk3 (Corrado) seats in my 73 square)

The problem was with rear impacts, resulting in the thin, non interlocking stamped steel seat rails folding up and folks with broken necks from smacking the rear window head first...
(I have seen these fall apart in off road use, add a little rust and it doesn't even need that)

Today, there would have been a recall on every car sold before the redesign.
(It could have put VW out of business)
Back then, for all pre-73s, you were told simply to ubolt the seats down (2 per rail) to the floor with a 4x4" (or 6x6"?) steel plates under the floor for each ubolt.
About 3 people probably did it. VW got away with it.

... and I haven't seen the TSB in ages, it was posted at one point.

No, sadly, I didn't make this up.

Re: beetle front seat mounts

Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2016 7:00 am
by Ol'fogasaurus
I'm fighting a similar problem right now in one of my buggies. In my case I am using seat mounts that are designed more for a flat floor mount than being used in the stamped floor on the beetle pan. One thing to remember is that when they make the stiffening flanges and the sunkin' floor areas of the pan they are stretching, e.g., thinning out the metal in those areas a bit which it why the doublers are recommended under the floor in the areas where the seat mounts are located; and yes, even with the strengthingn of the floors with the stiffening of the floor by the sunkin' area and the raised portions of the floor and the body mount tunnel there can be flexing of the floor pan.

In my case (or in the case of a bolt in show cage for example) you want to have the upper doubler and the underneath doubler slightly different sizes to keep the floor mmetal from "worrying" becaused of the same sized edges then the metal fatuging at that location causing possiblyfracturing/breaking there. It is probably more important in off road but in a hard collision the potential to be a problem is there.

For what it is worth.

Lee