Midas Gold

[billybob]

Hi all,
have made a couple of posts already but here goes:

I will be picking up my Midas gold convertible on Saturday. It's a 1992, based on a 1275 metro from 1990 which I believe makes it a mk3 but I could well be wrong.

The car is MOT''d and pretty well ready to go but will need a good going over by myself just to be totally sure everything is in order. I'm really looking forward to getting into this scene, the car is properly quirky. Who knows if it will actually be any good! I've had a morris minor before and actually really appreciated the a-series simplicity, lets hope this one gives me as little trouble as that one did.

First on the list will be to adjust the seat runners- I need to take the shelf out of the back seat area so I can get some more leg room, they are not the biggest of cars!
Has anyone done similar before? I don't want to replace the seats yet, just see if I can alter the position - not scared of using a drill on the rails. They are metro seats so I am hoping there is room for manoeuvre.

Hope to get to some of the events as soon as the car is completely ready to go.

Ben

[Hans Efde]

Yes it is quite common to fiddle around with the seats. I was able to install bucket seats as follows:
subframe under seats:

These are so low there is no room left to make a good marking on the floor:

So I made cardboard templates I taped under the rails. On the cardboard the holes are marked. Large flaps stick out in front and back of the seat:

I put the seats with the templates in the car to find a good position, sat in it etc. Until I was happy with the gaps around (door, handbrake etc.):



Then taped the template to the carpet and gently pulled the seats off. Drilled the holes, filled the old holes and done!

[billybob]

nice looking seats those, it looks as if there are some adjustment holes on the original frames there but I could be wrong?

[Hans Efde]

nice looking seats those, it looks as if there are some adjustment holes on the original frames there but I could be wrong?

Yes it was a gamble if they would fit but they were a bargain I couldn't resist. The shells are Cobra kevlar racing seats, even with the approval stickers. They were sitting in a shop in the corner and the owner wanted to get rid of them. He was selling them for 100 euro a pair! I wasn't sure if they would fit and how they would sit, but in the end I got them in place by removing a bit of kevlar from the flange. So I could fit them close to the tunnel and leave a half inch gap between the seat and the door. I used the original runners of my old Huntmaster seats and used 2 strips of steel and the standard bucket seats mounting brackets to get a good angle. Rough angle is with the bolts at the side of the seats and I fine adjusted them by placing rings between the original runners and steel support bars (visible in the pic.). The fabric comes loose easily on these seats so it was easy to place pieces of foam underneath to get a comfortable sit. Bucket seats may not be for anyone (my brother won't fit in them) but I took this car to England in 2009, did 750km in 1 day and stepped out without backpain or whatever.

Basically if the seat rails on your car are still good, you could make many seats fit in your car. To get them as low as possible, remove the original support frame and make a few brackets so the seats can be fitted to the seat rails. I have seen on this forum people fitting f.e. MX5 and MGF seats. Width won't be a problem, but height may be. I once installed Honda Civic CRX seats on my Gold coupe and had to lower them as well to get enough head room. Obviously in a convertible a lesser problem.

[benofbrum]

I have CRX seats in my Excelsior. In 2012 I drove from Birmingham, via Dover Dunkirk, to Bourg en Bresse in one go. 604 miles or 966km on the first day of a tour around the French Alps.