Reinstall the Seats

New fiberglass pans plus a 3 inch lift means trouble for making the Bradley GT II seats still fit.  The seats have an overlap on the door side.  I guess they call this an arm rest.  The original plan called for using several different size brackets with mounting to the pan and body.  The advice I was given was to buy the original Bradley GT seats, no arm rests and then they will fit. The second thing that hinders your progress is the way the sliders are mounted.  They are on the sides.  This creates about 19 inches of width and you really only have 17 to play with.  What's the solution...put the sliders elsewhere.

I was browsing a couple sites to see how much new seats would cost ($160 each - OUCH!!!) when I saw some real fancy sliders that were mounted underneath the seat on a metal frame.  OK, I like this idea.  I played with it a couple days and came up with this idea to use treated lumber and L brackets. I used 2X4s at 17 inches.  The bolts were 5/16 X 2 1/2 inches with lock washers and really big washers underneath the fiberglass and stop washers all the way around.

Those are 5 inch L brackets that were mounted to the side of the seat.  You can from the shape underneath that no matter what you do you have to get around that curved bottom.  Since there's plenty of cushion you don't feel the bolts in the sides at all.  All the hardware cost around $40.  I did have to bore out the holes I was using on the L brackets so the sliders bolts would marry to them.  It took most of the day, partly because I checked and double checked before I cut fiberglass.

I will need to lengthen the slider arm that allows you to slide the seat forward and back.  I positioned the seat farther back than what it was since I'm 6 feet tall.  The slider arm needs about 7 inches more that what I have.  I did see a knob that you can buy. So, I lost about an inch in height of the 3 inch lift because of the 2X4s.  However, when I sit in the car and close the gull wing door, I have plenty of headroom and can see over the hood without losing the skyline, like I had before.  I only did the driver's side for the time being, I'll tackle the passenger side in the future.