Interior: Too tall for seat

[Guest]

My 6'5" has a tough time getting into and out of the 63 Avanti. Wondering if anyone has found a way to use the original seat with another set of brackets or a modification..? Thanks!

[53k]

The man from whom I bought my '64 Avanti had rigged bracket extensions to allow the seat to go back four more inches. The picture below isn't great, but does show some of the additional movement back. I'll try to get more detailed pics and post them.

[Guest]

Thank you, Paul!

[53k]

Pictures of the seat extensions in my car. I'm not sure how safe they are, but even little old me at 5' 9" finds the extra length helpful.

[Guest]

I think I found a local company (to me) who will make a new seat brackets. I plan to visit them tomorrow with my old ones and the seat.
Will post here if they can do something to help. Thanks again, Paul.

[Hawklover]

I find it hard to believe that Sherwood Egbert who was at least 6'5" did not question the short distance front and rear that the seat travelled...this was a concern to many right from the beginning.....I am surprised a fix did not appears yrs ago..

I think I found a local company (to me) who will make a new seat brackets. I plan to visit them tomorrow with my old ones and the seat.
Will post here if they can do something to help. Thanks again, Paul.

[Hawklover]

If you are successful, I am positive a sheet pot full of orders will pour in from Avanti owners:-)

I think I found a local company (to me) who will make a new seat brackets. I plan to visit them tomorrow with my old ones and the seat.
Will post here if they can do something to help. Thanks again, Paul.

[SN-60]

I also crafted brackets to get that driver's seat back about 2" on My '63 Avanti ...... definitely makes the driving experience a bit nicer.

[Hawklover]

Care to share the specifics with the rest of us?? This would be great info for Avanti owners out here:-)

I also crafted brackets to get that driver's seat back about 2" on My '63 Avanti ...... definitely makes the driving experience a bit nicer.

[SN-60]

To: Hawklover,----OK, but believe Me it's been a while! I removed the stock brackets (L-shaped) at the front of the seat tracks, and basically fabbed up two new ones which were about 2" longer horizontally. This, of course,
moved the entire seat back about 2" (at it's rearmost travel adjustment position.) At the other (rear) end of the two driver's seat tracks, I believe I re-drilled the floor, and reinforced that floor area.

[hausdok]

Used to do it all the time when I worked for Toyota.

You have to be careful when doing that to make sure that you don't go too far lest the shorter folks who will be driving the car won't be able to reach the pedals.

We used to have the shorter family member driver sit in the car to establish where the front setting needed to be by measuring from the front edge of the seat to the brake pedal surface when the brake is depressed fully. Then we'd unbolt the seat, put the seat as far forward as it would go on the adjustment slide and move the seat and the slide back to that shorter persons maximum range. That's where we'd mount new brackets made from flat steel. The slides had an L-shaped bolt-hole tab at the front that bent down over a raised reinforcing rib in the body with a nut welded into a hole there. We had to flatten out the bracket so it laid flat on top of the flat steel; and then we had to countersink the holes in the bracket and replace the stock bolts with flush mount machine screws or the slide would hang up on the old bolts at the front. The choice was that or weld the front bolts to the underside of the slide and grind the welds flat (It was quicker to countersink the holes and we didn't have to worry about a weld breaking).

It worked well for for almost everyone except this one couple where the wife was very short and the husband was very tall. He was still uncomfortable with the seat moved to its new position and the seat adjusted as far back on it's slide as it would go. He understood though that we couldn't do much else without having a machine shop make him up longer slides copied after the stock slides. Besides, it was "her" car so he pretty much had to accept that she'd done all she could to accommodate him and he let it go.