Installed 2010 Scion TC Seats

Thanks to others on this forum, I was inspired to replace the seats in my 95.5 Tacoma 4x4. I went with the Scion TC seats in black/grey since at least one other person had used them.

Things to note:

1. These are not bolt in.
2. If you don't want to drill holes through your cab, some basic fabrication is required.
3. Rail width does not match the OEM seats.
4. Elevates seating position. I'm 6' and like it - makes the pedals more comfortable too.
5. Good seats with plenty of room for a console.
6. Drivers seat can be adjusted for recline, height and it has a forward adjustment for the angle under your thighs.

Tools you may need:

1. Grinder
2. Welder
3. Die Grinder / Carbide Bit
4. Drill / Bits
5. Paint Marking Pen or Scribe
6. Hand Tools
7. Impact wrench if you want to speed up the process of installing and removing.
8. Vice to bend some metal

Material:

1-1/2x3/16 CR Flatbar

This isn't a how to, but I used some left over brackets I had bought from Kings Metal online years ago for building metal fences. I left the rear brackets long so that I had an eyelet under the seat to tie stuff down in the back if necessary since I keep some fishing gear back there. If it gets in the way, I can pull the seat and remove the extra with a cutoff wheel in 30 minutes tops for both sides.

Tips:

1. The inside rails closest to the transmission tunnel can be reused with modification. The front mount must be bent downward approximately 15 degrees. Both the front and rear holes must be enlarged. I used my die grinder with a carbide bit. The front hole needs to be enlarged towards the firewall and the rear side hole needs to be enlarged towards the back of the cab. Probably a total of 1/4-3/8" between the two holes.
2. The outside rails will not fit the mounting locations since the rail is too narrow and too short to reach the holes. You have two options - drill through cab and use various sized bolts/washers/nuts to bolt them down, or extend the mounting flanges like I did.
3. You need to cut off the locating dowels on the outside rails. The dowels are located at the front outside mounting location on each seat.
4. You may notice the seats expose a small section of missing carpet. I'm going to trim a small piece from under the dash near the tunnel and patch those two little holes.
5. The seatbelt latches work with the OEM Tacoma seatbelts. I modified the wiring on the drivers seat, but my seatbelt reminder doesn't work anyhow.
6. This metal didn't like to be welded very much but it worked out.








I have a 93 4Runner console sitting in there just to see if it would work.

 

Looks good

 

Where did you score the seats and about how much $$?

 

I got them from eBay. Around $300 shipped for two seats in perfect condition.

 

Is there any way to confirm/deny they're not stolen? I've always wondered that about e-Bay merchandise???

Ed

 

Well a lot of recyclers will provide the VIN, but confirming that VIN to a seat is tough. What I do is only buy from vendors with significant positive feedback and so much variety in their parts that it's clearly a salvage yard. The company I bought from was 100% professional. The seats were boxed absolutely perfectly and palletized so that they arrived in perfect shape. If you buy from one off sellers with low feedback, then you do run the risk. Stick to the big guys with good feedback and you're probably safe. I almost went with a set of FR-S seats from Auto Gator in Roseville instead of using eBay.

 

Thank you for the information!

Sadly, I'm guessing there's very little control that e-Bay has over confirming what transactions are legit -vs- stolen and even more sadly...I'm sure many people just don't care.

Ed

 

The seats look good.
My only issue with the install are the brackets on the rear. Theres really not much other than a small bead holding those to the rail.
If your in a serious crash the last thing you want is your seat flying forward, if not for yourself then for whomever is riding with you.
What type of welder are you using? Ive found that a smaller 110 unit would be best for this type of steel. I used a 220 when i did my seats and even on the lowest setting it was a little too much amprage but I sped up the wire feed and moved faster to compensate for it.
Did you clean the paint from the steel you used and the brackets you welded to?

 

I plug welded the hole as well as wrapping around the sides. The welder I used was my ThermalArc 252i with .030. I did not use my Miller 350P because it was loaded with .045 wire and it's set up for spray. I did clean the paint away with a flap disk prior to welding. I'd imagine the bracket would pull away from the seat rail before the lower bracket since it's only spot welded with a rivet. I actually went slow on the beads to really wet them into the base metal to ensure penetration. But I can see you point so maybe I'll cut a strip of 1/8th flat and lap it over to ensure it's plenty strong. I have to pull the seats when my 01-04 Tacoma console arrives so to do this would take about 10 minutes per seat.

 

kind of hard to see, it just looks like one little bead across all of it

 

Where are you getting the console? EBay?

 

Yes I found a Tacoma console on eBay in grey that I need to dye to oak.

 

Looks great. I like how you did the mounts

 

Cool. Thanks. I had ordered some after market seats for my double cab then wrecked it. But sold them.

 

Those seats look really good and interesting idea .

 

What are you using for the dye?

Im taking out my 60/40 bench seats and going with a nice racing seat. I may go with black, which would make me want to replace the carpet (black)I just purchased a gray console out of a 04' Tacoma from Ranchero Toyota in California. I know that Tacomas didn't come with black interior as an option so I was wondering how I would do this.