I was thinking about getting some different seats for my car but my interior is tan so I just want to see if anyone else has swapped the seats. You can pull just about any color of seat with a black interior but I think i'll be limited to just black color seats.

see my gallery http://www.classiczcars.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=14322&ppuser=4106

I went ahead and recovered the tunnel and the boots to make the transition less noticeable on this car.

Will

Miata seats came in some tan colors too.

I used a tan upholstry kit and recovered mine. But I must say that my old butt would like kinder seats. His30 seats do look good with the tan. Jon

Stick with your original seats, after new foam and covers they feel great and look great.

Good luck,

Went with a brown. My wife hated the butterscotch...

Stick with your original seats, after new foam and covers they feel great and look great.

Absolutely concur. New foam and add the straps below the seat springs and you will be amazed... I used the "Datsun Reinforcing Strap Kit" from Datsun restore. Very very nice.

Finally completed my Butterscotch seats so thought I would chime in on this older post. I'm glad I stuck with the original seats even though it was big headache to even find butterscotch. I think I got the last set of covers on the planet. Seems no one is offering anymore.

I put new foam in the entire drivers seat and new webbing on both seats. They are very comfortable and the first question I got when someone saw them was, "who did your leather seats?" They look great and keep the original classic look I wanted.

Be prepared for sore hands and fingers. Stretching the vinyl for a good fit requires a nice hot sunny day to let the vinyl bake a little to make it pliable and stretchable.

A little tip that I should have photographed. The seat covers have a fabric sleeve on the inside that allows you to pull in the center of the bottom seat and the same on the back rest just below the headrest to the frame. This keeps the seat from puckering when not being sat on. Two metal rods (coat hanger like) one through the upholstery sleeve and one through the webbing/back rest metal frame are to be attached using two rings. These are virtually impossible to try and re-attach like the original setup from the factory. I used heavy duty zip ties and was able to pull the two rods together and tighten up the vinyl to the frame. they will never be seen as the upholstery covers them or they are out of view under the seat. It was a great way to pull the pucker out and just snipped off the excess zip tie.

By the way...mally002, I'm jealous of how great your car looks. I hope to be there by next summer.

Makes me want to make my next car in green & butterscotch. Excellent work, MidLifeCrisiz. Looks great.

Japanese Racing Green.

XK-Z-type is more like it.

Actually, I have one question. I'm 6'3" and I've been told that for taller drivers, the new seat bottom strap replacement really puts you much, much closer to the headliner- I'm assuming new foam too. For that reason I kinda like my collapsed seats. I have tons of head room. And instead of regular bucket seats, they're more like 5-gallon pail seats.

Perhaps you can post a measurement from seat bottom to headliner, for me to compare? Thanks.

Poindexter,

On the base of my seats there spacers that can be removed to lower the seats. As I am only 5' 9" so I have the spacers in to keep the seats at maximum height. From the back edge of the drivers seat to the headliner the measurement is 33 1/2" with spacers in. If you removed the spacers it would drop the seat by about 1" or extend the height the same amount. The drivers seat, which I measured for the picture, has brand new foam that has 115 miles of "butt time" on it. So it will only go down from here.

I also attached a photo showing the webbing underneath you can just see the end of the white zip tie that was trimmed off. I described this in the earlier post as a great method for synching up the pucker in the seat. The photos is from the passenger side where I re-used the old foam, but I did the same thing on the drivers side.

I put black fabric FD rx7 seats in my car which had a cream interior, i think it looks really nice and breaks up the black/cream look more - since the dash and centre console is black, and carpet which must have been black at some point in time.

sorry the pic is so zoomed in, it was taken with a fixed lense...

my car also has arm rests, and after seeing some cars where they are cream i'd have to say i prefer the look of the black, but mayb thats just me?

@MidLifeCrisiz- Thanks for taking the time to measure and post pix showing this area. It will definitely help me in my seat fix concerns.

As I expected, my spacers are long gone. Unfortunately so are my seat bottoms!

So of course I have excellent headroom, for now. Using your measurements, I'll try to figure out what I would be left with if I use the OEM spec seat foam. I really want to keep as stock as humanly possible. Thanks.

I'm 6'3" and I've been told that for taller drivers, the new seat bottom strap replacement really puts you much, much closer to the headliner- I'm assuming new foam too.

Just wanted to report that yes indeed, the seat bottom straps (strapped in real tight) with new foam put you up quite a bit. My guess is as much as two to three inches!

Butt feels better though... :cheeky: