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You guys are my heroes. I followed your steps and lowered my seat last weekend. It worked out perfect. I can't tell for sure how many inches I gained but I feel a great difference in the sitting posture, view (had to adjust all three mirrors), arm/hand comfort and wind effect with top down and on and on. This is one great mod that I did and it cost me less than $5!
If I may contribute a couple of points:
1. I always felt the side support on the bottom was a bit tight (hard) around the hip pointers before. So I marked with masking tape on the leather bottom, before I started, the spots where I wanted to make it a little softer and I removed more cushion material there. Now my butt feels much more comfortable and I feel like sitting on a much larger seat (except the back, of course). If you feel some parts of the bottom are squeezed more than other then I recommend doing this to contour the cushion.
2. When I put the rail brackets back onto the seat, I noticed that the lever for seat adjustment wasn't going up all the way. The movement of the rotating rod of that lever was restricted by a part of the lowered seat pan and the seat wasn't going to move at all on the rail the way it was. Some light banging with a flat screw tip to a spot of the fan (without removing the bottom again) fixed the problem. I wanted to mention this here as I was glad that I saw this before mounting the seat in the car. So, check the seat moving mechanisms before installing the seat.
With this mod, this car became even more pleasant to drive now. I thank you guys for giving me the idea.
By the way, it is hardly noticeable that the seat was lowered, by just looking at it.
If I look at it carefully comparing both seats, I can see the leather on the driver side is a little loose. But then, the surface on the unmodified passenger side has creases and some lines and etc. to make it not-so-perfect shape any way. This is only one week of riding after removing the foam and over time I expect the leather will stretch out more.
For me, I really don't care how it looks, especially when I am not sitting in it. The benefits are so nice and I am glad I did it.
Here are some pictures: passenger seat is at the left, driver's the right. top is from the side angle and bottom from the top. I guess the difference from removing the foam is more visible than I thought. Also be reminded that I drove this car just about a year, 99% of time solo--the passenger seat was hardly ever used. I wish I took the driver seat before I worked on it. Well, hope this helps you decide.
I'm glad that you are as happy as I was! I just decided to take action one day and fix the problem and this is what I came up with. It's nice to see that people are trying it! I'm glad that I could help!
I had Bob at Mountain View Auto Interiors drop the seat for me this morning. He claimed that pounding the rear seat mount wasn't going to lower the seat any. Instead, he drilled out the rivets on the brackets at the back, and re-riveted the brackets higher up on the pan, so that the bottom of the pan now skims the carpet. He also reshaped the bottom of the pan slightly and cut out about 2 inches of the foam with a foam saw -- basically all the foam that was in the pan dimple. He also rewelded the front attachment point rather than using JB weld, which he didn't seem to think highly of.
I'm 6'3", and the car is a 2002 MY. My head no longer rubs against the roof, and I can now see traffic lights without ducking my head around, and best of all... I can see the tach! The side bolsters around my hips are a big tighter, since I'm farther down in the seat, so I'm thinking of having those trimmed a little, but I'll wait to see how my butt and the seat get to know each other over the next few days.
The job was fairly well done, and they charged me $155.
If I were to do it again (i.e. if you are thinking of doing this mod), I'd suggest:
- taking out a small amount of foam on the side bolsters. Maybe just 1 cm.
- replacing the foam taken from the pan dimple with much lighter, more compressible foam.
- doing this mod sooner! I've been driving the car for 6 months like it was... I wish I'd done this in January!
05-17-2002, 05:50 PM
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