I won't deny that I have been blessed to be born into a family of old car fanatics. When I was just a kid, my great-uncle gave me my '40 Deluxe Coupe, and a couple of years ago, my great-aunt passed down her '40 Ford 1/2 ton stake truck to me. The coupe is my "hot rod" and the truck, well, it's the mild mannered, mostly stock "farm truck". The promise, that I made to my aunt, was that I would not make a "hot rod" out of the truck. Other than rewiring it to 12v, swapping the leaf springs and putting some big's n little's on it, I've kept to that. I've even been running the original seat in the truck, but it's in great need of repair, so I decided to put in a "temporary" seat in the truck, until I can do the appropriate repair work to the structure of the original, and recover it. From my research, many folks suggest the Chrysler series mini-van seats, but there was some confusion of whether it's the middle or the 3rd row. After spending some time, in the local pick-a-part, I can confirm that it is the 3rd row that is the correct width. It measures about 44" wide, at the front edge. Here's the good news. The entire project cost me less than $70. $25 for the seat at the Pick-A-Part $28 for a sheet of 3/4" plywood at the Home Depot $15 for some metric bolts and some wood screws. I think the bolts were 10 x 1.50 thread pattern, but don't remember the lengths that I bought. I had the option of going with a fabric or leather seat. I chose the fabric, just because I am not a fan of leather seats, and if I use "Mexican blanket" camouflage, the blanket will stay put better on a fabric covered seat! The "temp" seat The "trial fit", where I learned that the seat needed to sit further forward on the plywood. The base plate that I bolted the seat to. I cut holes in the bottom just to lighten up the weight of it. One thing that is not visible, is that I used a 2x4, lying flat, as a spacer between the seat and this layer of plywood. I used some scrap felt style carpet to cover the base with. This is the bottom layer of the seat base. It allows for additional clearance for the seat hinges, as well as lets the mounting bolts be recessed. I used 1 1/2 wood screws to attach it to the other sheet. The pieces of plywood screwed together and covered with the felt carpet. I put in 3 seat adjustment holes, spaced like the stock seat, to preserve the primitive "seat slider". The finished install, set in the "middle" seat adjustment hole, so I can lean the seat back a little more than the stock seat. There's a release handle, on the passenger side, that allows the seat back angle to be adjusted, or to release the seat to fold forward. The bottom portion of this had to be cut off. The portion that I cut off was used in the vans, from behind the seat, to fold it down, and totally unnecessary for this application. A few notes: The seat back is a tad shorter than a stock seat, which allows a little more space than a stock seat. The cloth seats tend to have the indentations in them, which will not align with your steering column. The leather seats do not have indentations. Toss the headrests in the garbage. Some of the seats have "cargo hooks" on the back of them, which come in REALLY handy, if you use your truck and keep tie downs stored behind the seat. This entire job was done with a circular saw, power drill, a cutoff wheel, a carpenter square, tape measure, pencil, socket set, stapler and a pair of scissors. Now...I have stated, all along, that this is a temporary install, but the chances of me ever doing anything to either recover this seat, or the stock one, are pretty dang slim. Besides, this seat is WAY more comfortable and way less bouncy than my stock seat. I'll keep the stock seat ready for any "traditional" events that I happen to take the truck to. (Chrysler Town & Country, Dodge Caravan & Plymouth Voyager are the vans that this seat can be found in) (Added for search engine purposes.)
The Jalopy Journal
