74 cj5 seats

hi... new to the site... hope you can help... we've got a fiberglass body with no seats and no brackets... got brackets from 4WD Hardware, low back seats from a junkyard, but I'm not sure if they're a good fit. awfully close to the steering wheel....no room for an adult in there, that's for sure....
the front of the wheel well angles back... is the seat supposed to take up that room?
where is the best place to find seats to fit a 74? any help anyone could offer would be great... I know it won't be the most comfortable ride, but I'm hoping my buddy and I can actually fit in the thing when done....

 

first off welcoem from washington. got pics? tell us more about your jeep! as far as the seats go, there are a lot of options for you, i know someone will chime in here that will help you out.

 

I'll try to get some pics up soon... basically we bought the jeep from a guy who had started to restore it... he'd pretty much taken a lot apart, and gotten a new fiberglass body.... though we've had some issues with the body, and had some suggest that it's either not from the same year, or it's a later 74 body on an earlier 74 frame or something like that.... the engine hadn't run for 10 years or something... we got that going, replaced all the brakes/brake lines, rewired the whole thing with a Painless kit, and just replaced the clutch. We're trying to solve the riddle of the seats... i.e. how to fit a full grown adult successfully in the thing. we have brackets that look like they'll fit like they're supposed to, but I still feel like the seats I have are too close to the wheel... if they only reclined a bit maybe....and I can't find anything online that says it sells seats to fit a cj after 55 or so and before 76. I assume I can get some bestop seats or something... is there a special trick to getting them to fit?
I'll get some pics up here soon, and probably some pics of the brackets we've got too...

 

As I recall, the adjusters on the drivers side let the seat slide back until it's in contact with the wheel well. You do have adjusters between the brackets and the seats, don't you? The tilt of the brackets moves the seat down and back as you slide the seat all the way back - I think the tilt of the bracket is something like 15-20 degrees downhill to the rear.

The passenger side is not adjustable IIRC.

 

we don't have any adjusters.. and I don't see how there would be any room for them either...we bought brackets that literally look like bent pieces of steel... one end bolts to the floor, the other to the small rise in the floor before the back... I guess that they could be mounted to tilt down in the back, and I can put the seats on as far back as possible... but the seats I have don't recline....might need to dig some up to get as much room as possible... I'll get some pics up soon, maybe thursday.... thanks for all the suggestions so far!

 

The adjusters are flat, like drawer slides laid flat. Bolts go through them into the seats, and studs stick out to mount on the brackets. They only raise the seat by about 1/2".

The driver's side bracket should have a tube across the front that bridges from the top edge of the door opening to a flat bracket that bolts to the top of the toolbox (or maybe to the floor - it's been about 30 years since I've owned one of these). Two flat brackets come back from the tube and bolt to the front edge of the rear floor. The adjusters sit flat on top of that, and only one adjuster has a release handle.

The passenger side is meant to "fold-and-tumble" so that the toolbox is accessible.

The flat brackets aren't right, at least for a '74. I don't know whether they are for a later Jeep, or whether they are somebody's idea of a universal bracket. The passenger side bracket changed sometime between '55 and '72, but I think the driver's side bracket is the same from '55 through '75.

 

Tim, wow.. great info....thanks. We actually had a set up similar to what you describe that we had gotten from a junkyard, but the tube that went across had a support bracket in the middle... it didn't seem to fit over the transmission hump in the middle of the floor, and we ended up just cutting the thing to pieces to fabricate our own setup... however, never could figure out the right height for the seats or the right distance from the wheel.... I think the ones we have now probably are supposed to be universal and are not perfect compared to your description, but I think they'll still work. We'll lose the fold and tumble capacity, and there's no toolbox so that's no loss I guess, but we should be able to fit some seats in there with these brackets....
People like Bestop say their seats fit a 76-03 or whatever... can you fit them in a 74, maybe using these "universal" brackets instead of factory? or are they just too big? I see people with high back seats in their jeeps all over this and other sites... is there a specific seat that works best? Or a trick to mounting them?

 

Hi spud6 - BTW I'm forgetting my manners - welcome from Boston!

I looked at a few sites. The original seats are very similar to the Bestop fixed lowback seat. Some sites claim this only fits '76 onward, while others claim it fits all models from '55 on. I suspect the difference is in the location of the mounting holes welded-in to the seat frame.

The only difficulty you might have is if the seats you want to use have a very thick or long knee bolster. The front of the stock seats is about 6" thick - you also need to be concerned about the length of the bottom cushion.

I'd suggest you get some cinder blocks or wood blocks and set your seat on them in the Jeep to mock up your best seat position. Change the brackets to fit the best seating position.

BTW tall guys sometimes cut out the front of the stock wheel well to get the seat to scoot back further. If the seat seems to close, and you're over 6' tall, you would not be the first with this complaint.

hth Tim

 

Tim.... Boston, eh? I'm from Hingham originally, went to college out in Amherst.... Go Pats! and who knows what will happen with the Sox this year....

My buddy is over 6' and had suggested cutting out the front of the wheel well... good hear he's not the first with that idea...

I'm going to mess around with it some tonight.... and hopefully get a few pics for you.... thanks for all your advice...

 

Seats

Hey Spud6,

I am building a 75 cj5 on a fibreglass tub. The brakets they sell at 4wd hardware are the right ones fo your tub. The poster that told you about the seat adjusters is right. You don't want a seat that can't be moved back and forth. If you can find an original cj5, you'll see that the back of the bottom cushion is all the way back to the wheel well and inside the body side panel. Suggestion.......mount the adjusters to your seat bottom. Then mount the brakets to the tub floor using the width from the adjusters on the seat. Then, move the adjusters to the extreme forward position which puts your seat in the rear of the tub. Set the seat on the brakets with the rear of the seat almost touching the wheel well and mark your brakets for the proper hole locations. This proceedure worked well for me and it does'nt let the seat come back and crash into the wheel well, but my wife can get the seat up far enough for her to drive it. (5' tall)
It's funny the you sign on from Williamsburg. I was raised there and moved away in '77. Went to Lafayette HS and James Blair Jr High. PM me sometime for some info on where you live and work down there.
Good luck on your project.............

 

Spud,
Thanks for the info... but where could we get seat adjusters? the stuff in the catalogs looks like it's just for 76 and up....my jeep buddy and I messed around with it last night, and I think we'll be able to get it to work without them, but if you know where we might find some, I'd certainly give it a try....
I've been in the Burg for about 4 years... from Boston originally....small world, huh?

 

Trimmed my fenderwells to mount my seats back further. Works great ! I used original front seat bars, (the bars that span from the door wells to the center). Cut off the tilt seat tabs and then welded new steel bars that go and mount on the rear floor panel. Bolt my seats to the new steel. I can't slide or adjust my seat position, but Oh well !

 

The best seats I've found for my 5 and my long legs are the non adjustable KUSTOMFIT models: High and low back. I think they are in LA and come in Bestop colors.

 

Do you have a picture of your fenderwall trim mod? I'm considering buying a glass bodied '73 CJ5 but hesitate without more info about fitting myself into the drivers seat!! What's ball park price for it (73 with 304 and 3 speed?
Thanks, Greg