Mk1 seat pan swap

I have a set of good 1.6 Mk1 seats to fit to a 1.8. The drawback is, normally to  fit 1.6 seats to a 1.8, you also need to fit 1.6 seatbelt latches, not only having to get the latches but also cutting the carpet.

 

Mk1 1.8 seats in good condition are harder to find because [a] there are less of them than 89-93 seats [b] there are 3 different styles of 93-97 seats [c] The flame retardant upholstery has rubbish wear properties, even though it looks similar to earlier models.

 

I haven’t seen any writeups of swappinjg a 1.8 seat pan onto at 1.6 seat.

 

Why the pans; this is the main difference in the seats. The 1.8 has a welded on tab for the seatbelt latch. This is the difference between a 1991 seat and a 1996 JDM seat.

 

 

Underneath, the later seat pan has more drilled holes.

 

 

To remove the pans, its just a matter of splitting the seats, and removing all the hog rings from the underside

 

Looking at the bare pans, there is also another difference; on the later models, a bracket is added that appears to add some thigh support

 

The later seat foam has some additional cutouts

 

 

compared to the earlier one

 

 

Just roughly cut out the foam. The  cutout around the seatbelt bracket doesn’t need to be much; the foam here is quite thing, and its easy to expose a spring.

 

 

Refit the pan, and secure the upholstery; I used cable ties, but you can reuse the hogrings

 

 

Start at the rear, so you can pull the front of the cover taut

 

With the cover fitted, make slits on the seat to expose the 3 captive nuts

 

 

Note, on the later cars, the upholstery is secured to the extra side bar, I didn’t see the need

 

Here is another reason to swap pans:

 

 

In some cases, the pan has been known to completely rot out. Once the pan rots, the seat loses integrity. If the pan is rusty, the foam can stick, so you need to ease it out, to avoid tearing the foam

 

 

Why not just fit some NB seats. I bought a good pair of NB leather seats for £200. Took 10 minutes to fit and massively improved the interior.

 

This post was intended to help others who wish to change seat pans. If you have a modification regarding fitment of Mk2 seats into a Mk1, please feel free to open your own thread on it,