GodwinAustin

Nothing on the board as far as I can tell: Can leather 4Runner seats bolt directly into a Taco? I cant weld, so any welding is out of the question... if there are modifications, what am I looking at?

Celica and camry seats are too much work to put in - should the leather 4Runner buckets require little or no work? I have a 1997 Tacoma xtra cab 4x4 with cloth buckets now.

Help guys - my back needs you

shazaam

The 4runner seats aren't going to help you that much more. Your better off finding nicer seats and finding a guy who can weld for you

EnolaGaia

4Runner seats are not a direct bolt-in into a Tacoma. The best case is 4Runner seats from the same generation as your Tacoma, which will usually get you 3 out of 4 bolt holes per seat lining up. There will be some tweaking / fabbing required for the 4th hole on each seat. Welding will probably be necessary if you take the approach of dismantling both sets of seats and grafting the Taco lowers (mounting base / feet) onto the 4R uppers (slider assembly). My understanding is that this approach involves more or less frankensteining, depending on the particular generations / seat assemblies involved. If you want to avoid welding, you're looking at fabbing 1 or more pieces to make a Taco-compatible base that you can get the 4R seats to fasten onto...

The problem is that Taco seats are not 'modular' (separable base / slider / seat) like most aftermarket units. The combined base / slider pieces are deployed as two pieces (one per side), with the seat itself providing most all the structural interconnection between them.

GodwinAustin

if I go out and buy some super nice volvo S80 leather seats and bring them to a reputable welder and say I need these in my truck - -

what am I looking at for cost - I would imagine it would be alot...anyone have an idea?

I dont want to buy the seats and relaize it will cost 800 to fabricate some brackets.

kevin444

Get one of them recaro racing seats. HAHAH

EnolaGaia

Don't laugh... If 'cushy' is what you're after, you can't do any better than a high-end ergonomic seat from Recaro or König.

I recently installed a Recaro Orthoped in my '04 Taco (dual heaters, dual fans, electric recline, thigh support extension, dual lumbars, adjustable side bolsters...)...

"Ahhhhhhhh!...." indeed!!

Praufet

You have pics of the new seat in there?

GodwinAustin

Recaros are too much money - salvage yards have seats for cheap if you know where to look....

but does anyone have an idea on the cost that a machine shop will charge to fabricate brackets and fit them on a volvo/saab/celica etc seat?

ranma21

Or you can get a set of 2003 honda accord seat, they are super comfy!! For me, 4runner leather seat is comfy and cushy enough, but I would prefer some real bucket seat, I like the one from honda S2000. Excellent support!!!

GodwinAustin

ahhhhh - fabrication cost/welding cost?


bueller? bueller? buelllllerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

IamaFan

Wow! Didn't even know recaro made seats like that.

Joyota

I believe someone here put Acura Integra seats from a salvage yard in their truck and said they were very comfortable. I can't remember if it was a Taco or not. Do a search for Integra.

GodwinAustin

ohhhhhhhhh mannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

EnolaGaia

There are really only 2 manufacturers of top-quality ergonomic seats - Recaro (Germany) and König (Austria).

Sadly - no, I don't have any pics (yet) of my Orthoped. A description of the model (at Speedware Motorsports) is
here.

If you're patient, you can find high-quality seats on eBay. I saved over $1000 on the Orthoped this way (used 6 months; stored 1 year).

I don't understand why people give such low priority to seating... As a senior human factors engineer with a bad back who drives long distances, it's a big deal to me...

GodwinAustin

Dude those are $5000 seats

NY T100

GodwinAustin, I am not a fabricator either so I don't have an idea about cost, but I'll try to get this back on track. My parents drive Volvos and I understand the desire to put a Volvo seat in. They come in leather with heat and electric adjustability. Very comfortable, but I have no idea of how hard it would be to make brackets that would work in a Taco. It seems that this is an area that someone with some skills could make some money at as a side business.

MTL_4runner

Wouldn't you be a bit more likely to notice, compared to the typical person?

Anyway GodwinAustin, no one seems to want to answer your question on Fab/welding costs so I'll give it a shot. You are likely looking at maybe $200 (about $50 per hour) if you took it to a shop and had someone do the work on the seats to graft the bottoms on to the new seats (maybe more if the seats don't have points to weld to easily). I am not totally fond of grafting onto the bottom of the seat in the first place because there needs to be a considerable amount of care taken to ensure the seat is safe (you don't want it to fall apart while you are driving or seriously hurt you in the case of an accident). It can be done but you want to really over engineer it to be on the safe side.

You can get places like muffler shops etc to weld for much cheaper (I have gotten them to weld stuff for ($5-10), but be careful what you pay for on a safety item like a seat. Also be careful not to burn the seat when you are welding on it (might require you to remove the padding and leather/cloth cover before the structural work begins).

GodwinAustin

Thanks man - I'm just trying to figure out how much this will cost me if I decide to go pick up some Volvo or honda seats or something; pay 150 for the seats and 1000 for labor wouldnt make much sense (wish I could weld)
- definetly with all the unhappy Taco drivers out there because of the seats, someone specializing in this might get a good business going.

EnolaGaia

"Dude those are $5000 seats..."

...And my butt feels like a million dollars!!! But seriously...

The Orthoped can be had for a mere (ha!) $1700...

Mid-range Recaros can be found (used) for a lot less... Mounting requires either fabbing up something to match their standard bottom-mount bolting scheme or just getting the brackets from Wedge Engineering.

If you want to economize....

- transplant seats from a VW, Volvo, Saab, or BMW
- reupholster and transplant manual multi-way SR5 / Sport buckets from pre-'95
- add an aftermarket lumbar and / or seat heater unit (e.g., from Rostra)

ranma21

This is another option. Check out Corbeau seat, excellent comort and support and they come with bracket specifically design for your truck