TURTLECON

I recently mounted a pair of front JK bucket seats into the rear of my Jeep and thought I would share some pictures and info of the install.

First removed all the mounting bolts with an 18mm socket and breaker bar. The bolt location marked by the green arrow is the most difficult to remove because it's an awkward position to get your tools in the right place. Once all the bolts are out, there's 2 bolts (15mm) connecting the 2 pieces of the 60/40 bench seat to one another. Remove those and out comes the bench from the Jeep.


Now is a good opportunity to cleanup all those years of crud that's built up and wipe down the body areas exposed through the carpet. Next I mounted the MasterCraft rear bucket/bench brackets. Didn't tighten all the way so there was some room to maneuver for the seat mounting. As you can see, there's one pesky bolt on the slider mechanism that doesn't line up with the MC brackets.


I wasn't prepared to start drilling holes into the new brackets just yet. I removed the bolt from the slider and attempted to see if another mounting point on the mechanism would line up with the hole on the MC bracket, but no dice. So, I removed the slider mechanism from both seats and mounted them without. Holes in the front of the seats lined up with the MC bracket, but the rear did not, so I marked and drilled a hole for the 5/16 grade8 bolts & hardware I used.



Driver side seat needs to mount on the pass side (and vice versa) so the levers will be towards the center of the jeep. The levers will hit the fender well if they're towards the outside.

TURTLECON

The seat belts mount to the upper 2 holes closest to the center. I used the rear driver side buckle and the middle bench buckle. The pass side buckle is the shortest of all three.


Tightened all the grade 8 hardware on the bottom of the seats, then used some blue threadlocker and tightened down all the 18mm mounting bolts to the body. Here's the end result!


I'm pretty pleased with it. I sat in each seat and it's definitely more comfortable than that fixed bench seat that couldn't recline. It would have been nice to get the slider function working, but I'll save that for a later date. I'm 5'10" and I think even a 6' tall person would be fine sitting back there for a couple hours.
I have to admit that the folding bench seat was very convenient for storing/moving larger items, but was very uncomfortable for friends & family on long road trips. I know my dogs aren't going to be too thrilled with this change hahaha, but there's still plenty of room in the rear cargo space & possibly I can figure out how to get the seats to recline ALL the way to the floor for even more room.

Now on to find some new seat covers. These seats were from a salvage yard and were pretty dirty, not to mention a few rips, tears, and holes... but that's just fabric. The frame & cushion are in great shape. Possibly I will reupholster all 4 bucket seats with new material from a local shop.

Thanks for looking! I hope this helps out anyone considering doing this mod or something similar.

-Mike

jk bobby

great job! your rear seat passengers will thank you

Beachcruiser12

That looks good man I like it !

TURTLECON

Thanks guys!

Delux2769

That is great.

I'm going to keep following this, because I really want to do it once someone figures out the flat layback on seats.

pxb006

Nice job. Looks great. And definitely more comfortable!

TURTLECON

I haven't fully looked yet, but I'm willing to bet there's some type of retainer clip or metal lip that stops the seat back at a certain point. Might just be a matter of grinding down or removing whatever is blocking the full tilt.

TURTLECON

Took a look last night and can't seem to see what is in the mechanism that prevents full to the floor recline. It's driving me nuts. Anyone have any ideas?

12JKR

That looks great, good job!