1971 bench seat to bucket conversion

[oakenhammer]

I am getting to the interior work on my 71 roadrunner and am stumped at finding the parts that I need to take the old bench seat out and put in buckets. I have looked at procar seats and like them but can’t seem to come up with what I need to make it happen. Any help and input would be appreciated.

 

[493 Mike]

I bought and fitted Procar buckets for my 65 Belvedere. I used their universal mount kits and welded them to the floor. Three of the brackets worked but the front inside was too tall so I cut a solid block of steel and substituted it for the kit furnished mount.
I wanted the seats as low as possible. I had to cut off a portion of the adjustment slots on the seat front also.

Mike

 

[70chall440]

Pretty straight forward, you need the seats obviously, then you need the tracks (aka runners). There is 2 ways to do this, first is to get some factory bucket seat tracks (I believe they sell reproduction ones) which will have to be adapted to whatever seat you are going to use unless it is factory buckets. Or you can adapt the tracks that come with the seats you choose to work in the car. This is going to require that you determine the height you want them at, then making some adapters to get them to bolt to the floor pan. Lastly, you will have to drill some holes in the floor to mount the seats.

 

[70chall440]

Mike - you beat me too it, great picture.

 

[oakenhammer]

thanks for the info. talking to procar now. i like the rally xl (i'm a decent sized guy). will post info as i go.

 

[biomedtechguy]

I replaced the bench seat in my 70 Roadrunner with Scat Procar bucket seats. Kept the bench seat shifter and Blue Thunder Consoles and I put together the 1st console for my application.
After 1 week with my new seats, I sold my bench seat to another 70 Roadrunner owner who needed one.
The guy who installed the seats made a metal spacer for one corner of the bracket if I recall correctly, but it was an easy install. I used the tracks that came with the seats and a universal bracket kit.

 

[YY1]

thanks for the info. talking to procar now. i like the rally xl (i'm a decent sized guy). will post info as i go.

How tall are you and where is the height?

I'm 6'3" with a long spine.

I barely fit in a factory bucket car with factory brackets, and that's after I remove the factory 3/8" spacers from under the tracks.

I've even contemplated swapping parts of bench seat tracks into the outboards to gain an additional 3/8" headroom.

Most "universal" tracks I've seen reduce the headroom by a pretty good amount.

If this may be an issue for you, I'd do a LOT of testing and mocking up before welding anything in.