'01 Lexus ES300 Power Bucket Seat Retrofit Build Thread

I want to put in leather power bucket seats into my truck using some old bench seat brackets from a '96 I got at the junkyard. I was planning on welding the seat brackets from them to the donor seats.

UPDATE: My local junkyard had two Tacomas, a '96 Single Cab and, and a '95 Extended Cab. The '96 Single Cab had bench seats. I originally went to this truck and unbolted the seat brackets from it, but discovered it wasn't going to work due to the fact that there were only two seat brackets and not four. On my way out of the junkyard a new Tacoma was fresh in the row, so I took a look at it. It had the 60/40 bench seat configuration so I bought the seats ($40 for the pair with P&P's 50% off sale) and took the brackets.

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I ended up buying two black leather bucket seats with full power seat adjustment and heated seats from a 2001 Lexus ES300. It will require some wiring and welding but it'll work. It was manufactured by Toyota as well, so it isn't straying too far off from the brand.

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These seats have:​

• Black Leather & Memory Foam​
• Motorized Controls​
• Heated Pads​
• Seat Position Memory​
• Airbags​

To prevent any accidental discharge of the airbags during the retrofit I unplugged the airbag harness on the chair and tied off the four airbag trigger wires.

To allow for easy access to the rear for passengers in my ext. cab, I will me mounting these chairs ontop of the original Tacoma sliding mechanism. The Lexus rails (once the feet have been grinded off) will be mounted to the Tacoma rails with angle iron. The mounting system for these seats are based off the chassis of Toyota manufactured sedans (ie: Lexus ES, LS, GS & Toyota Avalon and Camry).
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The seat rails should work just fine. All the seats mount to the same locations.
I went from 60/40 to some WRX seats with no issue.
Can't comment on which seats to get

 

How did you attach the WRX seats to the brackets?

 

I grounded the rails on the WRX seats flat then I cut out the mounting feet off the tacoma rails. Bolted the feet into their locations, set the seats on them and welded the up!

 

Nice, do you have any pics of the process? How do they WRX seats versus the stock ones? They slide back and fold like the stock seats right?

 

I put some RSX seats in my truck by modifying the feet on the RSX seats. If I was going to do it again, I would just cut the rails off the stock seats and put them on the RSX seats.

FYI most seats for cars will sit higher than the stock seats in a truck.

 

I don't have any process pictures unfortunately. I love them! Put them in right before going to Moab, never again will I have stock seats. They slide forward and tilt the same. Mine also adjusts up and down. These seats hold me tight in got them for $150, so not terrible

 

On my way to Pick & Pull right now to buy the bench seat out of a '96, and I'm going to go shopping for some leather bucket seats. My plan is to weld the bench seat brackets to the bucket seat brackets.

Pick & Pull is having a country wide 50% off sale, you guys should take advantage of it.

 

Just be careful of powered seats. They typically have plastic/rubber guides inside the rails. If you don't remove them and start welding on in, they will melt and FUBAR your seats.

Once I get off the crapper/phone I'll link the process Jon and I went through doing my seat swap.

 

I'm still debating on whether or not I should get power seats or not. What do you think?

 

Power isn't as important to me as comfort.

I put in Subaru Forester XT seats because they're comfortable and look stock. The driver's seat is three way powered. I barely use it because, as RonCo said, I set it and forget it.

Here's the link to us installing my seats... it's the best I could do while working:

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/madjik-mans-laugh-at-with-him-build.98326/page-13#post-6029229

 

And here's pics of them installed:

 

Those look great, my one concern is accessing the rear. seats in an extended cab. Do the seats have the same functionality as the stock seats to slide forward and tilt?

 

Update: I went to the original '96 tacoma I found the other day and realized the full bench seat only had two rails.

I decided to ditch the whole seat replacement idea, and I was walking back to the junkyard exit and I saw a brand new (to the junkyard) '95 Tacoma extended cab with 60/40 bench seats. It was so new it wasn't even registered on P&P's database yet.

I immediately hopped on it and took the seats, and here they are. I will be sacrificing them to get the brackets. I still have yet to find a replacement set of seats to attach to them.

That truck was only there for less than 12 hours and it already had its engine missing and most of the interior.

 

Man these seats were chock full of dog hair and god knows what. I cleaned out the bracket and ratcheting mechanisms with my air compressor and ripped out and threw away everything besides the rails.

$40 dollars and a long day at the junkyard later, I have my mounting rails. Now to buy the seats. I have to figure out what seats I want by Monday since the 50% off sale at P&P ends.

 

I do not. The passenger side doesn't fold forward like the stock seats do.

Kinda sucks.

 

So this is happening, everyone. I found a 2001 Lexus ES300 with black Leather in GREAT condition for a steal for $80 dollars at P&P with their Memorial Day Sale.

The seats are heated, and have full electrical adjustments. What I want to do is somehow keep the Tacoma sliding rail system intact so I can roll the chairs forward fast to allow for passengers to get in since the chairs won't tilt forward like the OEM ones.

All that's left now is to somehow attach them to the Tacoma rails and wire up the electrical system.

The seats are extra heavy since they have airbags in them. As you can imagine I will not be utilizing them. I don't think there's any good way to remove them.

I was going to use Volvo seats, but I couldn't pass up keeping the truck authentic with Toyota manufactured parts.







Here you can see the Toyota manufactured seat computer.



Well I guess the real first step is I have to learn how to weld. Lol.

 

Maybe try JB Weld first. Cheaper and holds pretty good.

 

I prefer duck tape and zip ties