shadow5606
02-04-2005, 10:07 AM
Well, if any of you caught the thread for a while back I've been planning to install some GT leather seats into my GLS. The fronts as we all know bolt right in with no problem but the rears are a little more tricky. I was a dork and left my camera at home so I don't have pics but I'll try to be as descriptive as possible for anyone who might attempt this later. I had some great help from my friend Mark and another member here, Gonzo777 who just happens to be my neighbor.
The first step is to yank the stock seats from your GLS... Super GLS has a great DIY on this that you can find with a search.
http://www.elantraxd.com/DIY/oemseat.php
Now with stock seats removed you next challenge is removing the U shaped brackets at the top of the rear deck. (if you pull your seatbacks forward you'll see these are what your seat latches onto to stay back.) For this step we just used a dremel to cut these right off. This will later allow the GT seats to lay back properly.
Next you need to figure out a way to attach the seat bottoms to the body of the car. The stock GLS seats have a big metal tang on either end that goes down into the body of the car & the GT seats have tabs at the front that are supposed to bolt right into the car.
The way we approached this was to take the GT 2 part seat bottom... lay it side by side with the leather on the ground. This will make the folding tabs on the front bottom fairly level. We took a 4ft piece of 90 degree angle alluminun, cut off a little excess so it's length matched the distance distance from one folding tab to the other end of the seat bottoms. Then we drilled through the alluminum at the points where the bolt hole are on the folding tabs. Last we bolted the alluminum angle piece onto all 4 of the tabs on the seat bottoms and secured them with nuts and lock washers on the other side.
Now we were left with a single seatbottom piece that was bridged with this piece of 90 degree alluminum that would later help us install it all in the car.
This is an awful diagram but imagine the row of X's is the seat bottoms. This little backslash at the front bottom would be the 90 degree alluminum angle that is bolted into the seat bottoms. the first 1/2 of the agle bolts to the seat bottoms and the other 1/2 of the angle hangs down over the ledge of body that the seat sits on in the car.
\
\
\
\xxxxxxx
x-------\ <---90 degree Angle alluminum
Now that you have a "Uni-seat" instead of two loose 1/2's you should go back to the side collums and seatbacks. I put in my side collumns first and then went for the seatbacks. If you've had your rear seat appart you know that the seatbacks attach to rotating brackets at the bottom of the seatbacks. Now the GT and the GLS both use the same bracket system but the measurments of where the holes are drilled do NOT line up!! We were able to make this work without additional drilling though. The two outer brackets seemed to line up the best so we bolted those up first. Next with the inner brackets we had to get creative. There will be several holes of the same size in the corners of your seatbottoms but only one hole is threaded. We managed to get the bolts to thread in the unthreaded holes but and we even did a little prying with a crowbar as well. This was a tight fit but the seatbacks bolted in without additional modification.
now your seatbacks should lay flat if you've already dremeled off the U shaped brackets at the top of your rear deck. if you've not, you'll see what I mean! :)
Now that we have the side collums (which bolt in like stock) and the seat backs installed we can finally finish our seat bottom project!!!
The rear seat of the GT is a little narrower than the GLS so you will have a little space on either side but if you line it up carefully and match the stitches from the seatbacks to the seatbottoms you will not have a noticeable gap!!
We laid in our "uni-seat" and lined it up right (make sure to pull your seatbelts above the seat or they'll be lost!!!)
We pushed and shoved a bit to get the "uni-seat" right where we wanted it and then went back to our angled alluminum which is now hanging right over that ledge of the body that the whole seat is sitting on. We drilled through the alluminum with a larger bit size and then drilled through the body of the car with a slightly smaller drill bit. Then we used some sturdy sheet metal screws to attach the alluminum to the ledge/body of the car.
At this point we could shake, kick, sit on, push and even verbally abuse the seat bottoms and they didn't seem to move.
The last thing to tackle is getting the seatbacks to stay back but that should be relatively easy. I'll update here when I do that.
I know :worthless
but I didn't have my camera and thought I'd post for you guys anyway.
Hope this helps and if anyone else tackles this just email me and maybe I can explain things better!!...
The first step is to yank the stock seats from your GLS... Super GLS has a great DIY on this that you can find with a search.
http://www.elantraxd.com/DIY/oemseat.php
Now with stock seats removed you next challenge is removing the U shaped brackets at the top of the rear deck. (if you pull your seatbacks forward you'll see these are what your seat latches onto to stay back.) For this step we just used a dremel to cut these right off. This will later allow the GT seats to lay back properly.
Next you need to figure out a way to attach the seat bottoms to the body of the car. The stock GLS seats have a big metal tang on either end that goes down into the body of the car & the GT seats have tabs at the front that are supposed to bolt right into the car.
The way we approached this was to take the GT 2 part seat bottom... lay it side by side with the leather on the ground. This will make the folding tabs on the front bottom fairly level. We took a 4ft piece of 90 degree angle alluminun, cut off a little excess so it's length matched the distance distance from one folding tab to the other end of the seat bottoms. Then we drilled through the alluminum at the points where the bolt hole are on the folding tabs. Last we bolted the alluminum angle piece onto all 4 of the tabs on the seat bottoms and secured them with nuts and lock washers on the other side.
Now we were left with a single seatbottom piece that was bridged with this piece of 90 degree alluminum that would later help us install it all in the car.
This is an awful diagram but imagine the row of X's is the seat bottoms. This little backslash at the front bottom would be the 90 degree alluminum angle that is bolted into the seat bottoms. the first 1/2 of the agle bolts to the seat bottoms and the other 1/2 of the angle hangs down over the ledge of body that the seat sits on in the car.
\
\
\
\xxxxxxx
x-------\ <---90 degree Angle alluminum
Now that you have a "Uni-seat" instead of two loose 1/2's you should go back to the side collums and seatbacks. I put in my side collumns first and then went for the seatbacks. If you've had your rear seat appart you know that the seatbacks attach to rotating brackets at the bottom of the seatbacks. Now the GT and the GLS both use the same bracket system but the measurments of where the holes are drilled do NOT line up!! We were able to make this work without additional drilling though. The two outer brackets seemed to line up the best so we bolted those up first. Next with the inner brackets we had to get creative. There will be several holes of the same size in the corners of your seatbottoms but only one hole is threaded. We managed to get the bolts to thread in the unthreaded holes but and we even did a little prying with a crowbar as well. This was a tight fit but the seatbacks bolted in without additional modification.
now your seatbacks should lay flat if you've already dremeled off the U shaped brackets at the top of your rear deck. if you've not, you'll see what I mean! :)
Now that we have the side collums (which bolt in like stock) and the seat backs installed we can finally finish our seat bottom project!!!
The rear seat of the GT is a little narrower than the GLS so you will have a little space on either side but if you line it up carefully and match the stitches from the seatbacks to the seatbottoms you will not have a noticeable gap!!
We laid in our "uni-seat" and lined it up right (make sure to pull your seatbelts above the seat or they'll be lost!!!)
We pushed and shoved a bit to get the "uni-seat" right where we wanted it and then went back to our angled alluminum which is now hanging right over that ledge of the body that the whole seat is sitting on. We drilled through the alluminum with a larger bit size and then drilled through the body of the car with a slightly smaller drill bit. Then we used some sturdy sheet metal screws to attach the alluminum to the ledge/body of the car.
At this point we could shake, kick, sit on, push and even verbally abuse the seat bottoms and they didn't seem to move.
The last thing to tackle is getting the seatbacks to stay back but that should be relatively easy. I'll update here when I do that.
I know :worthless
but I didn't have my camera and thought I'd post for you guys anyway.
Hope this helps and if anyone else tackles this just email me and maybe I can explain things better!!...