Swapping from bench to bucket (or vice versa)

Obviously for single cab situations only.
Curious about '97, '98, and '99 Tacoma seat mounting structure.

What is involved in swapping seats? Any hot work required or is it bolt-off, bolt-on job? Mostly concerned about the seats and not so much the center consoles.

Thanks again for the wisdom of anyone who has done this already.

 

1997

 

If you have a factory 60/40 split bench, 1st-gen Tacoma buckets (or other seats on 1st-gen Tacoma bucket hardware) should bolt right in to the floor.

If you have a factory full bench, you'll need to drill some holes in the floor and add either weld nuts or figure out other hardware to use. The full bench has fewer mount points than the split bench or buckets. You can see the mount points from under the truck. If I remember correctly, the outside mounts are the same, one of the inner mounts (on/near the trans tunnel) is present but unused (or maybe used by the seatbelt? and the other inner mount has a dimple on the body indicating where it would be but it's not drilled.

If your donor seats are from a 3rd gen 4Runner, you'll also need to do some massaging to the brackets and/or fab some adapters.

There are a bunch of existing threads discussing seat swaps from a variety of donor vehicles. Most people talk about swapping them into extended cab trucks. The swap into a standard cab will be the same except for the missing mount points when coming from a full bench.

You might also need to do some figuring-out with the seat belts. The seat-side receiver for a bench seat (both split and full) is different from that of a bucket seat. You might get lucky and the receivers on the bucket seats will work, but I wouldn't count on it. You might get lucky and be able to transfer the entire seat belt from the donor truck, but I wouldn't count on that either--standard cabs use a totally different belt assembly from extended/double cabs, and even among standard cabs the belts changed as safety systems evolved. Worst case, I think you could send your old belts and new buckles to a seat belt refurbisher and get the parts swapped around.

 

What center console is that and how did you mount it, if you don't mind me asking?

Also, I installed BMW 335i seats in my 96 (it's the same cabin). I just drilled holes where needed and sent some nuts and bolts along with it, it's ratchet but it works. I managed to run some electrical wire from the fuse box under the steering wheel under the carpet to the seats to get them to move too. They fit fairly well the only thing is the rails are noticeable but you can spray paint them black and it shouldn't look too bad

 

It was stock

 

Is it from an XtraCab because I haven't seen anything like that on a single from factory?

 

It’s from a single cab, stock setup with bucket seats with SX package

 

Appreciate it