My daughter is a bit... vertically challenged. She likes to drive her B, but the seat is a bit low for her and does not move up far enough for her to be really comfortable driving. So I decided to fix that.
I removed the seat, and found there was another reason she sat a little low. The seat webbing, only two years old, had broken in two places. Off to Moss for a new set! The new webbing looks to be made better and hopefully lasts longer. I won't go into the details of replacement, aside from it is a few steps:
- Remove the seat base cover and foam.
- Remove the old webbing parts.
- Install the new webbing.
- Curse the engineer that thought this was a good way to install the seat webbing.
- Finish installing the seat webbing.
- Reinstall the foam and seat cover.
- Take a nap, because that was not very fun.
The real problem was that the seat would not move far forward enough. There is plenty of adjustment, but the seat is offset just enough that it runs into the transmission tunnel and will not move all the way forward as it probably could.
So I made these out of 1/8" bar stock.
These allow me to shift the seat (and seat track) forward by about 1", and offset it by about 3/4". One side is a through hole for the bolt to the original attachment point in the floor, and the other is tapped for a 1/4-28 threaded bolt.
Installed, they look like they'll do the trick.
The seat height was easily addressed. When I took the seat out, I found that the furring strips were broken and really not thick enough. I made some new ones out of poplar that are about 3/4" thick.
I also drilled a new adjustment slot in front and back of the existing slots on the seat track, and moved the stopper back on the track to allow the additional rearward adjustment.
Once the seat was bolted back into place, the difference was immediately apparent. The seat sits a bit higher, but not too much (about 3/4", go figure) and the new webbing keeps her from sinking into the cushion. The seat moves forward quite a bit more now. It also moves back to about the same point I like to keep it at for when I drive Alice, so we both win!
This was a satisfying job. My daughter is much more comfortable working the clutch and brake. I can still drive the car too. In fact, I plan to do so next week!
