rear facing truck bed seatting

hey guys i was thinking of putting seats in the bed of the trucK (with seatsbelts), ive seen the bedryders but those are $80 any other ideas that i could go with.

 

Maybe some out of an old Subaru Brat?

 

all i know is im about to get a big ass bean bag chair or two to throw back there when im chillin at the beach or tailgating and whatnot.

 

Great idea. Always liked them.

 

i seen a couple desert trucks with bucket seats in the bed, rear facing...

coolest one had racing seats with 5 point harnesses...

 

im planning to do the same thing.. and yea bed ryder seats at 800 bucks a set is dumb. i found poly bucket racing seats for 70 bucks each. they accept 4 point harnesses, and im sure it wouldnt be that hard to weld up a frame

 

X2 - should be common as dirt, just find the right junkyard. DOT legal, seatbelts and all.

 

I've seen someone that bolted a couple fishing boat captains seats in there. Or get a bench from a big excursion van. You want something that mounts to a flat floor.

 

Hmm. this is familiar. Just finished the project a few weeks ago. I pikced up some junkyard seats from a Suzuki Reno to use because they were the correct width (and cheap). Once I got them home I realized they were better than the stock seats so I pulled the stock seats out and cut off the brackets. The Suzuki seats had the same track width so I just welded the factory feet onto the Suzuki rails and in they went.

That left me with the stock seats to use in the bed. I built a seat frame from 1.5" square tubing and the seat rails are welded to the frame. It's bolted through the floor with large backing plates under the bed. I'm using lap belt for now, but will be changing them to 4-pt harnesses at some point. I did this for my two older boys ages 11 and 10 since I have 3 year old twins as well. The twins sit in the back seats, and the boys sit in the bed.

With the topper on it's pretty tight for an adult. Legroom is fine but headroom is scarce for adults. The stock seats are pretty low profile and I did everything I could to keep them low but there's still not a ton of headroom. If you don't have a top, then it's not a concern.

For safety I will also be building a rollcage. The way I've got the seat frame built i can turn it around and have it forward facing as well.

Suzuki seats in the cab of the truck


seat frame and stock seats welded to frame. you can see the tabs with captured nuts where I bolted through the floor.


cheap seat covers but finished project

 

all of the kids loaded up for fun

 

That's bad ass

 

too cool man!

 

While I think that your idea is sound, I only say this: Since you have children in car seats, I would be cautious about how well the frame is mounted to the vehicle (are the bolt locations in a reinforced part of the bed, or through a single thickness of sheet metal) I noticed you said you used oversized washers, but even a large washer will not prevent tearing of sheetmetal. I am glad to also read you will be doing a roll cage. I hope VERY VERY soon, as if you were even in a small accident, injuries are easy in a bed. Other than that, you have an AWESOME looking setup, and it looks like you did a good job. Those welds look pretty good from here.

 

I appeciate your concern. I'll assure you that as a father safety is priority #1 as far as my kids are concerned. If I didn't believe the setup was safe I wouldn't be using it. And in case it wasn't clear there are not child seats being used in the bed seats. My boys that ride back there are long out of child seats. That's the whole reason that we did it so the child seats could be in the cab.

Currently the bed mounting is using more than oversized washers. There are large backing plates under the bed. The bed would tear off the body mounts before the seats separated from the bed. That being said, I plan to build a subframe to go beneath the bed as part of the seat mounting that will be integrated into the rollcage. At that point, those back seats will be safer than sitting in the cab without a rollcage.

 

thats bamf! over kill IMO but when there's kids involved, do what you think is necessary. my dad used to just throw us in the bed of his old '87 ford with the old school aluminum camper ever time we went to the desert, i loved it.

 

Glad to hear you are going the route of overkill. There is no such thing as too safe when your kids are involved, that is for sure! Good luck and lets see pics of the roll cage when you get done!

 

Same here I cant tell you how many times I rode in the bed of the truck with an aluminum top. No seats and defiantly no seat belts. I'm in my mid 30's so that was probably early 80's I guess that was a different time. There wasn't even a seat belt law back then.