Fitting Ford Fiesta seats

[sixdogsisback]

One of our club members has Ford Fiesta seats fitted in his Van. He did not fit them. These seats are very good to sit in, so I have today bought a set of Mk 4 Ghia seats off ebay. Has anyone fit these seats in their Minor? if so I would welcome any information on how you fit them. I no doubt would come up with something myself, but there is no point in reinventing the wheel, if others have found a satisfactory method. At my age, my back just won't stand the standard Moggy seats for more than a few miles.

Thanks, Clive.[frame][/frame]

[Nuffles]

It depends how good you are at fabricating. Depending on the mounts on the bottom of the Fiesta seats you could simply drill down into the floor and bolt them down, preferably with some sort of spreader plate under the floor to make sure the bolt can't pull through. If the seat mounts can't be simply bolted flat to the floor then you may have to make up a plate that will bolt to the seat rails and then bolts to the floor. It would make sense to re-use the original minor seat captured nuts to bolt down the front of the plate, and again two bolts and spreader plates at the back.

I have the former stages of scoliosis in my spine and, as a result, a very bad back (at the ripe old age of 19 ) and I find the Moggy seats really rather comfortable. Modern car seats feel like an instrument of torture after half an hour but I can happily sit in the Minor seats for hours on end without much pain.

[sixdogsisback]

Thanks for your reply, very sorry to hear about your spinal condition. The seats in the picture appear to be fixed directly to the floor of the car, but on first examination, this seems too low for a Minor. Our club member, who had the work done, has had the original seat steel tubes cut off, so to retain the original fixings to the floor, and some steel extension pieces welded to them to pick up on the Fiesta seats. It looks a bit ugly. I had the idea of placing the Fiesta seats on wooden blocks to determine the best height and rake, by trial and error, then, having determined the best height and rake, use box section steel, or large diameter pipe, to weld distance pieces with drilled plates on the bottom and top, to match the existing holes on the Fiesta seats and fix to the floor. I am inclined to drill new holes in the floor if need be. I have welding equipment and can weld (after a fashion!) I had hoped that there were members who had successfully fit Fiesta seats and could tell me how they did it.

Regards, Clive.

[Nuffles]

Nothing to be sorry about. It doesn't affect my life very much apart from not being able to sit still for very long without becoming quite uncomfortable and some other joint related problems. As I said it's quite minor compared to advanced scoliosis so I'm quite lucky that it's not far worse - it may get worse later on but who knows?

You seem to have the right idea. It may be a plan to make a raised plate on box section legs so if you decide to change seats further down the line you simply have to redrill the plate rather than having to make up a whole new sub-frame. I don't imagine it would have to be a very high platform to achieve the same height of the Minor seats as they aren't they high to start with. Another thing to take into consideration would be seat squab angle - do you prefer a very flat seat or one that tips backwards slightly? Unless the Fiesta seat bases have this sort of adjustment built in you may want to fabricate the angle into the platforms to get a tailored fitting. Fiesta seats are quite low to the floor whereas you'll be building them up a little so they may not end up perfectly parallel to the floor as one might expect. Get playing with wood and see. I'd go for the rally look personally and fit the passenger seat lower to lower my CoG and improve cornering speeds