front bucket seats on '68 Barracuda

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Dave NEO

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these are original seats AFAIK. When looking across the tops of the seat backs, should they angle in slightly toward the center of car or be more or less level/straight across the tops? I am think of adjusting with some washers under the frames; maybe they have been bent in over the years. Pic sort of shows what I am getting at. It's more pronounced when looking at them straight on.
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well now I see on that pic that having the driver seat a bit farther back than the other kind of exaggerates things - but they are in alignment with each other - they just tilt toward each other -the drivers side does 'list' a bit more..tilt more clear I think in this pic



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in my 68 Barracuda, I'm pretty sure the drivers seat did lean inboard a tad ,away from the arm rest. I hated that and shimmed it straight and plumb right quick, and also raised it up as high as it would go on the factory mounting studs. I hate looking like a midget.Then I raised 'em up some more on a custom plate. I am not short,lol. I'm almost 69 inches Tall,lol.
I eventually pulled them out, in favor of some RX-7 seats...... and had more fabrication work to do. That's HotRodding.....
 
in my 68 Barracuda, I'm pretty sure the drivers seat did lean inboard a tad ,away from the arm rest. I hated that and shimmed it straight and plumb right quick, and also raised it up as high as it would go on the factory mounting studs. I hate looking like a midget.Then I raised 'em up some more on a custom plate. I am not short,lol. I'm almost 69 inches Tall,lol.
I eventually pulled them out, in favor of some RX-7 seats...... and had more fabrication work to do. That's HotRodding.....
Mine leaned some too. I have a driveshaft loop welded to the frame connectors, that the back seat bolts go thru. I might have pulled the floor a little doing that, so I shimmed w plastic washers and rubber bumpers a little . I like the stock re/foamed seats, they are pretty comfortable if ur over 6 ft.
 
so I'm thinking I'm not alone on this and it might be a function/result of age - when you get in you are thowing your weight onto that side of the seat frame - 50 years of this can have an effect. Anyway thnaks for your input - I'm going to shim the frames on the inside and see if I can straighten them up a bit. They are comfortable seats otherwise. My recover job on rear seat and new top boot came out great IMLTHO.
 
Yep, seat frame fatigue and warp is common to all sorts of vehicles. Used car guys would jack the floor pan to hide some of it but you didn't hear that from me.
 
..........I am think of adjusting with some washers under the frames..........
FWIW, Instead of using the plastic re-pop spacers, I just used nylon spacers from the local hardware store. They have various diameters and thickness available.
 
ok, so I found some other threads on this topic -it is a fairly common issue... looks like will need need some longer bolts with shims on the inside rails..
 
The studs through the floor are swedged into the tracks. You may not need longer ( depending on how much shim you need ). If you do need longer hardware, you'll remove the seat, hammer those studs out of the tracks, replace with hex heads, struggle and fish under the seat with a end wrench at reinstall, etc... or make a carriage bolt with similar square shoulder stay in the track ( tack weld it? ).
Be cautious when moving the seats back into the car. Those studs can feck up a door panel quick. Any way you go about it, the more the 2 tracks are skewed from parallel the more bind/difficultly in slide forward and back. Good luck with it.
 
swedged in huh, well of course they are- that figures.. thanks for good news, lol - seriously, better to know that up front so I appreciate your insight..hope to get under there this week. we'll see what what we got - at first glance I did notice one of the inside bolts had just enough threads coming through for the nut..
 
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I put hardwood spacers under the tracks, similar to hockey sticks. The bolts of course were too short. After removing the swedged bolts, I installed regular HH bolts with flat washers on both sides of the track-bracket,and clamped it all together with a HH nut and spring-washer. Then I drilled holes in my wooden spacers to receive the nut and washer. And finally reinstalled the factory nuts underneath the floor. I used long enough bolts to allow for final attitude adjustment, for which I used quite large and thick farm-use flat washers between the spacers and the carpet.
>In another car I procured a 1/4" thick rectangular aluminum plate to span all the holes. I leveled the plate in the car with those same farm-use washers. Finally I dropped the seats thru properly located holes in the plates, and thru the floor,and secured them with the factory nuts. There was just enough stud protruding to get the job done.
 
Even with the spacers/standoffs the studs on my '69 tracks have more than enough under the car. Lol, maybe complaints from the assembly line made them longer.
Some pictures before I recovered .........
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This probably isn't relevant but... never know. When the factory placed bucket seats in a build they added reinforcement plates to the floor pan at the 4 inboard mounting points. These plates were 11 ga. steel ( approx' 1/8 thickness ). A lot of owners would replace a OEM bench with buckets and just drill the holes, no plates added. One would need to remove the seat and lift the carpet to know if they are there or not. I doubt that eighth of an inch would make a noticeable difference initially. The lack of them might make a difference in floor pan distortion over time. One thing for certain, with a seat on a workbench, lay it on its back and fold it. A twisted frame would be easy to see ( back and bottom not square/aligned ). If its square when folded and not square fully opened, the stops are the fault, one side travelling father than the other. Not many would go to so much study to find the problem. Like I said before, used car guys would simply place a 2 or 3 inch pipe coupling on the floor jack under the car.
I found seat bottom/base frames cracked too. Don't know why they put this big hole through the frame but the metal had cracked from the hole to the top. This allowed the left front corner of the base to sag. My best guess, the seats must have came from a manual trans car. Anyway... Closed the crack then welded a flat washer over it.
So that had nothing to do with seat back tilted. It does speak to metal fatigue.
 
If its square when folded and not square fully opened, the stops are the fault, one side travelling father than the other. Not many would go to so much study to find the problem.
Forgot to mention 3 of the 4 hinge nuts were loose from my seat frames. Just some small welds on the hex tips was all they had. I'm sure that could make some difference as well.
They won't come loose again.............

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my bolts were though the central holes... anyway, no biggie, these carriage bolts were held in place with nuts and lock washers vs. being swaged - I added longer ones (3") I got at Lowe's (stainless) and doubled up on the factory style half inch spacers (from e-bay) for the inside tracks and all looks good - surprised that just the additional 1/2" did the trick - if I need more I'll add a bit but this seems to be all that was needed. thanks all again for insights. Nice difference this makes when you jump in either side - just feels right. fwiw
 
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I can add from experience, If you don't use the reinforcement plates on the inside 4 bolts where they go thru the floor. They will cause fatigue cracks in the floor pans. I've bought parts cars where someone installed bucket seats without these plates, and have found cracked floor pans.
If you should need these plates, AMD makes these and are reasonable.
Auto Metal Direct 407-1067-S: Bucket Seat Floor Mounting Bracket Set for 1967-1976 Mopar A-Body | JEGS
mine had the 4 plates on it, was orig bucket seat form S car.
 
OK, so by inside bolts, you mean the two bolts on each seat that are closest to the center of the car? Wish I'd looked when I had them out -could have lifted the carpet. Will have to get another look.
 
Just some welded in plates, the front two inboard if it helps.........

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just checked and they are in there which is good -it's a new floor pan - maybe PO got the plates with the pan, I think AMD includes them.
 
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pitching old seat covers- any reason to make note of #'s? kept metal tags on frames fwiw.
 
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