Fox body seats in the classic

[sigtauenus]

As you may already know, I'm putting in fox body GT seats from an 89-90 in my car.

I just transferred the seat tracks and installed the driver seat and sat in it.

DOH! It sits much higher than I expected, so yet another issue to deal with. I have the original 15" steering wheel and it is uncomfortably close to my thighs at any seat adjustment. My head does not touch the headliner but I can feel my hair touching slightly (a problem that will fade with time). If I recline the seat to not have my hair touch I am leaning back significantly, not a problem to drive but not exactly my style (think hat on crooked, loud offensive music, and just the left hand on the steering wheel).

The easy answer for the steering wheel (which I hadn't settled on yet) is to get a 13.5" Grant wheel or similar.

I don't know how to fix this other than to yank the carpet and cut out the seat risers, chop them, and reinstall.

Has anybody made these work comfortably without modding the seat riser?

 

[Fast68back]

Cut the pan, you'll be glad you did....

 

[sigtauenus]

Cut the pan, you'll be glad you did....

Ugh. Ok. It'll be on the list of things to do after I get the car together and driving it unless somebody posts a better idea here.

 

[crustycurmudgeon]

Can you stand to have the seats back a little further? Moving the seats back also lowers them a bit, because the seat pan top is angled. It's much easier to do the seat track mod than the seat pan mod.

Frank

 

[Jonk67]

Not sure how you ended up so much higher than the stock seats as the foxbody's were the same ht. as my stock '67 seats. Did you use your stock sliders or the foxbody ones with the riser feet still on?:

I used the fox sliders but drilled/chiseled the 'feet' off of them and drilled a couple holes for mounting a 1" wide 1/4" thick steel spacer bar so I could mount them 1"-2" back since I'm 6'1" and installed a MotoLita 14"? wheel. I have no issues with thigh space and my head is at the same spot.

Jon

 

[sigtauenus]

Thanks for those pictures Jon, particularly the one showing the new seat next to the original in the car. I didn't realize the older seats leaned back as far. Perhaps I'm not too far off.

Funny, those red Fox body seats are the same that I started with.

I used the original tracks. I used a factory bolt hole on the front of the seat and drilled/tapped a new hole for the bolt on the rear of the seat. Effectively this should have shifted the seat rearward, as opposed to using the bolt hole on the rear of the seat and drilling a new hole up front. The difference would have been about 2" or so (memory, not measured).

Which Motolita wheel is that, I though they were 15"?

 

[tarafied1]

Cut the pan, you'll be glad you did....

I dreaded doing this, but I went ahead and chopped it before the Power tour. I'm glad I did.

 

[Daves69Coupe]

I had similar red seats when I bought my 69 Coupe Jonk67. Guess it was a popular to switch the fox body seats into older cars.

 

[johnpro]

I have '89 Mustang GT seats in Scary. Now I'm only 5'9", but I used the '69 seat tracks. I didn't notice any difference in height from the original '69 seats.

The GT seats have a higher head rest, electric lumbar supports, and adjustable thigh bolsters.

 

[sigtauenus]

Here's the passenger seat with the track installed. I used the forward factory mounting hole, and drilled and tapped the hole for the rear (top hole in close-up) There was enough metal reinforcement behind there at that location to have a pretty solid mounting point.