Folding 2 gen seats for coupes

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roysneon
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Folding 2 gen seats for coupes

Post by roysneon » Wed Apr 08, 2009 8:56 am

One thing that the 1 gen wasn't known for was comfort or luxury. Luckily, 2 gen and SRT seats are a direct bolt in. The only downfall of this mod is that 2 gen's were never offered as a coupe, so none of those seats fold forward to allow access to the back seat. There is a solution for this too, and it's relatively quick and easy to do if you're sure of what you're doing.

Tools needed: Ratchet, 10mm socket. I'd suggest a 3/8th drive becasue there was a lot of loc-tite type stuff on the bolts. T25 Torx screwdriver or socket. 15mm socket to remove the seats from the car. I found that a 10mm ratcheting wrench made things easier, but it's not needed.

Parts needed: reclining 2gen seats of your choise: Leather R/T, fabric, non-Viper SRT seats, etc. seat recliners from 1 gen coupe seats.

First step is to remove the seats from the car. 4 15mm bolts hold then down at the end of either slider rail.

With the seat removed, you'll have a plastic cover over top of the bottom portion of the recliner mechanism. It's held in by two T25 screws circled in the photo below.
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With the plastic cover removed, this is what you'll see. The next step is to remove the two 10mm bolts holding the reclining mechanism to the seat bottom. They're circled in the photo below.
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At this point the seat bottom and back portions are only held together by one 10mm bolt at the pivot point on the other side of the seat. You can remove it and take the seat apart into the two pieces, or leave it together. I would suggest taking it apart just so it's easier to manage.
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Now the seat is broken down into the top and bottom portion.
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To take the reclining mechanism off, you need to pull the fabric and foam up to get at the remaining 10mm bolts holding it on. The fabric is snapped together as shown in the photo below:
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With this fastener undone, you can now pull up first the fabric
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Then the foam, revealing the last two 10mm bolts holding the mechanism to the seat back.
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At this point you have the reclining mechanism completely removed from the seats. Now you'll have to repeat this process with the 1 gen coupe seats to get their recliners for use with your new 2 gen seats.

2gen v.s 1gen: 2 gen (reclining, non-folding) top, and 1 gen coupe (reclining and folding) bottom.
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Installation of the 1 gen recliners are the opposite of removal. I would suggest attaching your new recliners to the top portion of the seat first before doing the bottom, to make clipping the fabric together easier, and also so that you don't have to stretch the foam over it while it's attached. You'll want to use the 1 gen plastic covers on your seats as well, as the 2 gen ones don't have room for the seat to come forward and will bend. You can also choose to cut a hole in the back of the fabric for the lever at the back for people exiting the rear of the car, but I chose not to.

Et Voila! The end result:
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srt4eh
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Post by srt4eh » Wed Apr 08, 2009 10:20 am

very nice
98 Neon R/T, 00 Neon, 06 Jeep GC SRT-8
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Ladi3sman55
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Post by Ladi3sman55 » Sat Apr 18, 2009 1:49 pm

good write up sir
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Post by domesticated » Sat Apr 18, 2009 4:28 pm

anybody know the weight of the seats id have in my 98 rt coupe and the weight of the second gens and the srt-4's
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