Interior: Wagonaire front seat relocate

[rbigcal]

Has anyone moved their wagonaire front seat more rearward. I know I can make an adapter plate, but the question is how far can I go and still be able to move it forward enough to fold back seat bottom forward if I needed to. I drove this car in a half apart state and I thought the seat was frozen up in the forward position. Now after having the seat upholstered I discovered it has very little legroom. I sold a customized 45 ford pickup because of it being so uncomfortable to drive, so I thought this wagon would have a ton of legroom. One surprise after another! I have spent close to $19.000 in parts and materials so far and now I discover its designed for short people apparently. Talk about buyer's remorse !

[Bullet]

I have owned 6 wagonaires, all but one had the bench seat, the one had the split bench. 5 were automatics, one a 3 sod with OD. I am 6 foot 6 and never had a problem. Now maybe I just adjusted or something, but I used my wagonaires as daily drivers for easily 20 years and never had an issue with the seat. I did move them all the way back per factory.

I currently drive a 64 Cruiser where the previous owner moved the bucket seats back 2 inches. Seems to be more comfortable. He just drilled holes in the floor and put bolts through the floors.

You could try that drill new holes trick.

Just a thought.

Mark

[Dick Steinkamp]

I'm 6'2" and was quite comfortable in my 63 Wagonaire.

These are with the seat all the way back. Compare to yours?





Note that you could not relocate the front seat any further back and still be able to fold down the back seat.

[55 56 PREZ 4D]

I bought a car with reupholstered seats.
The seat would not move back all the way.
I found there were cloth "ties" on the seat bottom that had been tied wrong to the slide mechanism, limiting seat movement.
I retied them correctly and was able to move the seat back several inches.

[doofus]

Have you looked at your current seat mounting? those captive nuts in the floor are movable front to back, with some effort, gives about 1 1/2 in of movement. back to far and rear seat wont fold down. study the situation before you go drilling holes. luck Doofus

[StudeRich]

Drilling holes in the non-reinforced sheet metal floor is not what you want to do.

The Factory floating Nutplates have re-inforcements to take the force that could be applied in use.

[rbigcal]

No I won't drill new holes, but if I did I would reinforce it. I made up some adapters, this morning made from 1/4" steel. I made them to move seat back 3" which is more or less 1/2 of the seat track adjustment. Hopefully that will leave enough forward adjustment to allow rear seat to fold forward if I had to. I can't imagine anyone over 6 ft tall could be comfortable in this car. Even my head was really close to headliner. I think my upholsterer made the seat back too thick. If I remember right the seat back didn't have any foam , just a fairly thin layer of cotton. The bottom could be a little thicker as well, but not much. We took the bottom cover off and looks like foam is ok on that part other than has a pretty good arch in the middle. He is going to try to compress it down some more and cinch the cover up more. I'm gonna drive this damn car one way or another even if I have to drive from the back seat !

[Dick Steinkamp]

No I won't drill new holes, but if I did I would reinforce it. I made up some adapters, this morning made from 1/4" steel. I made them to move seat back 3" which is more or less 1/2 of the seat track adjustment. Hopefully that will leave enough forward adjustment to allow rear seat to fold forward if I had to.

I made similar adapters for my 62 Corvair. They were notorious for not having enough seat travel for the driver.



I think it is a much better solution than drilling holes, and should be nearly as strong as the original.

It also sounds like if you slide the seat forward, you can still fold the rear seat down.

[stude dude]

We have some seat 'lowering' kits that appeared around 1960.

Chris.

[sals54]

As Dick said above... I'm also 6'2" and had no problem fitting into my 64 Wagonaire. Plenty of leg room for me.

[garrilla]

Sounds like your seat is the problem. I'm 6'3" and my legs can stretch out plus I have plenty of headroom in my "63".

[doofus]

Rbigcal stock Stude seats have a thin layer of cotton over burlap. the burlap is hog ringed to the top seat frame that surrounds the coil spring tops. you probably have way to much padding on yours, causing the problem. been there done that. luck , Doofus

[rbigcal]

Upholstery guy is supposed to work on the cushions, but no telling how long that will take. He isn't too happy about having to cut down the seat back cover. That's ok because I'm not too happy with him charging what he did either. He had me buy material twice, saying that he was short. Apparently He charged me for his mistakes. I thought the guy was pretty good, but I can see now that he screws up a lot. I saw him give a guy an estimate for doing a 70s chevy pickup and he told the guy to pick up 15 yrds. of material. That seems a little far out. I somehow seem to get hooked up with guys like that !