Front seat tilt mod

[Stevehose]

Both HBChris and Adawil2002 have tilted their front seat which gives a little more leg support. Being 6'5" tall I can use all the comfort tweaks possible so here is my take on it, I have been wanting to do this for a while.

I removed the rails from the seat bottoms after taking the seat out of the car, then cleaned and regreased the rails.

Bought M6x40mm bolts to replace the soon to be too short front ones. Threaded 2 nuts then a washer to spread the weight on the plastic piece below and installed but did not tighten all the way. The rear bolt is just barely tight so it allows movement up front. Seat is upside down here:

Then I made wood shims to put in the gaps to take some stress off the middle of the rail and painted them silver to make them less obvious.

Wedged it in then tightend down the bolts to compress it in place:

Mounted in the car and now more comfortable for road trips:

Also my seats are orignal and not up to supporting my ever increasing arse after 43 years so I bought some 2" chair foam, cut it into 3 strips and installed it under the springs, this restored the support under the entire seat:

 

[adawil2002]

Great write up. Makes all the difference in comfort on long trips.

 

[tochi]

Nice job.

I considered something similar but never pursued the project. If I recall correctly some of the later E3s, E12s and E24s had a mechanism attached to the bottom of the seat that permitted vertical and tilt adjustment. This may not be suitable for you because I think it added too much additional height to the seat, but I just can't remember. It is also possible that the mechanism had a different bolt pattern from the E9. Maybe someone else can expound upon this.

 

[Blinkling]

I just saved some e3 seat rails from a car that had found its way into the Fresno parts yard. After a little modification, I had new seat rails for my e9. The rails are largely the same and they bolted to my e9 seats. The main difference between the two cars is what happens below the rails. In the e3 is that nifty setup you're showing in that diagram. In the e9, it's solid pieces that are, for lack of a better description, part of the unibody. I'd have liked that e3 mechanism but even I'm not ambitious enough to clear room for it in my car -- too much torching!

 

[rsporsche]

Nice job.

this is similar to what was used on e30 sport seats ... the difference is, they mounted to the floor, not the raised pedestals that we have. i have an e30 m3 seat frame in the attic. might pull it down and play with it while my seats are out of the car. i've also been wondering if i can lower the rear mount for the scheels. i remember seeing an interesting drawing that i thought did that in an overall frame ... but i don't seem to be able to locate it.

 

[sfdon]

Per Cadillac Greens request I added 70 mm of leg room by re positioning the sliders onto the seats today. Had to change over to the later seat belt which requires a mod to the rear seat reel bracket.
Should of tossed the front seat and made him drive from the rear seat.....

 

[Stan]

Per Cadillac Greens request I added 70 mm of leg room by re positioning the sliders onto the seats today. Had to change over to the later seat belt which requires a mod to the rear seat reel bracket.
Should of tossed the front seat and made him drive from the rear seat.....

The Shaquille O'Neal conversion?