1985 Toyota Bucket Seats in a 1990 Toyota

A while back I did some trading for a set of bucket seats from a 1985 truck.  Although the covers were not in the best shape, the seats were fairly comfortable, and were structurally sound.  Probably the biggest problem with the seats is that they were brown, and my interior is blue.  

For several weeks I considered using fabric dye to solve this problem and get the seats in the truck as soon as possible.  Luckily I was browsing through eBay and came across an auction for some blue factory take-off seat covers for the seats I was planning to use.  I won the auction, and worked with Dennis at Quality Auto Parts to have a pair of seat covers sent to me for $70 - what I consider to be a reasonable cost.

Once the seat covers were delivered, I was very impressed.  They were in fact factory seat covers, and were brand new.  Not only did this allow me to have blue seats, the fabric and color make the seats look like factory installed items.

With the seat cover problems out of the way, there are still some colored items that must be addressed.  The headrests were still brown, as were the side plastic trim pieces, headrest inserts, and reclining handle.  I still intended to use a flexible paint for these pieces, but was not looking forward to having to repaint the headrests often due to the wear.  As luck would have it, I was able to do some trading with an online friend who had the blue pieces I needed and wanted the brown pieces I had - perfect!

With all of that taken care of, it was time to actually install the seats.  out came the stock bench seat by removing the 4 bolts holding it in.  Then came the moment of truth - mow many (if any) of the 85 seat mounting bracket holes line up with my cab?  I got lucky here - basically shooting 50% on the bolts.  The two outer holes lined up on both seats and placed the seats in a good position.  The two inner bolts were another story.  The inner rear hole was *so* close to the factory seatbelt bolt that I first thought I would be able to use that.  As it turned out, I had to drill a hole right beside it instead.  This meant I had to remove the seat belt bolt, and drop a new bolt right beside it to sesure the inner rear seat bracket as well as the seat belt.  Later I will go back and silicone up the unused hole from the factory seatbelt bolt.

I never added the fourth bolt - the front inner bracket.  Most likely I would use a self tapping bolt to fasten into the metal there, either that or attach a nut behind the metal floor ridge to attach to.

Over all, I am very happy with these seats.  I did not realize how poorly the stock bench seat supported me until I sat in these seats.  Plus, I like the fact that they look stock with the matching factory seat fabric.  The added room between the seats will also allow me to either mount a small cooler there, or a custom center console.