A tale of two seats
Written by am
The mission seemed easy, but the execution failed: interchanging driver's and assistant driver's seat.
We have removed the third seat in the rear area of the car. The original seats of the cockpit were not existent, instead, on the driver’s side a truck seat was installed, while the co-driver’s seat had been replaced by a seat of the brand “Recaro”.
Do sit down
After some test drives, the seats got our approval that they can stay. To be frank, we were glad that we wouldn’t have to add another item to our purchase list. But we had one wish concerning the seats: we wanted to interchange them. The person on the steering wheel should enjoy the electric Recaro seat with various functions (inclination by button, inflatable backrest, ventilation, etc). In order to realize this plan, we had to purchase an original console first, since we only had one for the right side. Luckily, we found one second-hand for a reasonable price.
Lot of effort, no outcome.Before installation, both consoles were reconditioned by us, i.e. they got rust-proofed and newly varnished.
Unfortunately, the truck seat did not fit on the original console right away, thus it was necessary to produce an intermediate piece. This involved more work, but was feasible.
Afterwards, the seats on the consoles were reinstalled on interchanged sites. Unfortunately, only after the last screw had been tightened and we could sit on the seats, we noticed that the Recaro seat was too wide for the available space on the driver's side. The seating surface protruded too much into the center console what made it difficult to operate the gear stick and impossible to tighten the handbrake.
Almost a happy end
In retrospect, we are laughing about the fact that we had put so much effort into interchanging the seats, while in the end they remained on their inital sites. But at least we now have a seat console on each side of the cockpit which offers valuable storage space and in which now several tools are well accommodated.
