Seat Frames for ’68 & ’66

Ever since I brought home the '68 I have been struggling with replacing the front seats. The PO had installed some Wally World seats that just looked terrible. Original replacements for an early Mustang do not seem to exist. I spent a lot of money trying to adapt several different brands of new seats and nothing I have found has been acceptable. So, as mentioned in a previous thread, I designed my own frames, bought marine grade aluminum bar from a supplier in Florida, and shipped the aluminum bar stock direct to a fabricator near Dallas (along with my drawings).

The new frames arrived yesterday and they look pretty dog-gone-good.

The frames are just wide enough to straddle the battery which is in the floor below the driver's seat in the early Mustangs. By lifting off the seat cusion the battery will be accessible for service. There is enough distance between the seat braces to allow removing or replacing the battery without removing the seat frame from the floor of the boat. This was one of the tricky parts in the design that I felt I had to address. That is why there is no horizontal seat brace at the rear of the seat.

I considered mounting the front horizontal seat brace on the front of the frames so as to allow more space for accessing the battery but I got to thinking that if anything rolled under the seat (like an un-opened can of beer) that brace would make it hard to reach. So I called for it to be on the top as close to the front as the fabricator could place it. (Just like it is in the pic.)

The other tricky area was the tight space between the front of the motor box and ski pole and the backs of the seats - move the seats too far forward and there is no leg room for the driver in these small boats. Spacing and angle of the seat backs here is critical - too much angle and you hit the motor box, not enough angle and you have a very uncomfortable seat.

Next week it's off to the upolsterer for custom fabricated cusions. I'll send pics of the fininshed seats.

The pics of the frames (below) show them next to a Wally World seat to give you some perspective of the size.

Boat Dr.

Send pics if you can.

I came across these photos of a Mustang somewhere. My thanks to the owner, whoever he is, for posting these pics. This is the effect I am trying to duplicate. They look pretty nice. (IMHO)





Thanks,

Jim (jim@electricaltrainingusa.com)

They look great Jim. Similar to those in my 82. BKH

well they realy don't look that much different than the brackets I have on the 79 and what you can or could have gotten from Mid-west CC. Other than the braces what Jim did is almost exactly like the factory ones I have on my boat. SO now that you are getting some seats does that mean your mounting the speedo next? or you you like holding it and the beer can at the same time, you should be pretty good at it now that you been doing that for so long.