Fitting Triton fibreglass race seats

 

Making it fit.

When I got the seats I had a quick measure to see where the problems were going to be. I didn’t mind losing the transmission tunnel carpet, but wanted to keep the side panel, so I had 39cm max. width. It quickly became apparent that the problem area was going to be the side harness cut-outs. These had a bit of a lip on the outer edge that, at its widest point, made the seats 40cm wide, but it didn’t take much to grind half a centimetre off each side. I used my dremel with a rough grinding wheel to take off just about all of the bottom lip and the front third of the top lip, and finished off with an orbital sander.  After a bit of tinkering (actually quite a lot of tinkering) I could get both seats in.

 

The base.

The base of these seats has four M8 threads for the feet. I had read that 45mm front and 30mm back got the seats at the right angle, so I decided to start with this and see how I got on. I found this gave an absolutely perfect seating angle, which enabled you sit quite low, with good leg support.

 

I bought some M8 threaded bars from Focus and cut these to length. When the seats are fitted properly, I’ll need 90mm of bar for the front and 65mm for the rear. But in order to trial fit the seats and to establish how far back they should go, I cut some shorter lengths: 50mm front and 35mm rear, and screwed these into the seats. I then fitted a 40mm washer, four nuts and a further washer on each of the front feet, and a 40mm washer and one nut on the rear feet. I bought two lengths of 2cmx2cm square aluminium tubing from B&Q and cut this into four 36cm lengths. I drilled 8mm holes in these for the threaded bar to go through, and fitted them to the bars on the seat (from side to side). The tubing then needed to be taped to the underside of the seat to hold it on while I manoeuvred the seat into position.

Here it is ready for its trial fit. You can just about nake out where I had to grind the side harness surround back.

 

I put the seat in with the back about two inches forward of the rear bulkhead, and climbed in being careful not to knock the seat off the tubing.

 

The position was ideal for me (though taller drivers might want to position the seats as far back as they will go). So I then had to climb out without moving the seat (no easy task) then mark where the front tubing was on the floor. Out came the seat again,

 

Final fitting.

Now I needed to take out the shorter threaded bar from the seats and put in the longer (90mm and 65mm) ones.

Here it is almost ready for final fitting. Just needs the harness threaded through.

 

I then cut a piece of cardboard to cover the base from the front tubing to the rear. I laid this over the base of the seats and marked where the threaded bars were. Once this was done I could lay the template on the floor of the car using the line made earlier as a guide, and mark where the bolt holes needed to be drilled. (Unfortunately, despite my attempts to get the floor holes positioned accurately, a couple turned out to be a few mm out, so I had to enlarge the holes to 10mm to give me a bit of manoeuvrability.)

 

I had to thread the harness through the harness holes at this point. It was clear from the start that I would not be able to adjust the lower straps once the seat was in position, as the buckle would be wedged in beside the seat, so I had to have a guess at what length these had to be and it turned out that I got it more or less right. They could have been shortened a little to give a really snug fit, but since I would not be able to adjust them once the seat was in, I thought it better to leave a little slack around the waist for when I am wearing a thick coat.

 

Before I tried to get the seat bolts into the holes in the floor I had to bolt on the lower harness anchor points. To get the seats past the harness buckle I needed to angle the strap at about 45 degrees at the mounting point. This meant the buckle was a little higher up the side of the seat where there was a bit more room.

 

Once this was done and I had double-checked that I had not twisted the straps, I moved the seat back and tried to get the threaded bars into the floor holes. Even with the bigger holes drilled in the floor it was still a pain in the bum getting it lined up, but with a bit of leverage, brute force and help from my wife we eventually got the bolts in. A quick check to ensure that the seat position was correct and the harness fits, then I just needed to do the nuts up underneath the car. I used the same 40mm washers I used on the base of the seat and a nylock nut. Job done! Well, half done. I still needed to do the other seat. But having done one, I felt the passenger seat will be easier. It wasn’t.

 

As usual the job took longer than I thought it would, but it was worth it. It would have been easier if I had removed the side trim panel, but I didn’t want to do that, and am glad I persevered with the side panel in. The seats look terrific, and the seating position is much improved with loads of side support. Next job: sort out the knocking UJ (at least I think it is a UJ) and fit the slotted wings. But that can wait till after Christmas.BACK