Leather 4runner seats in Tacoma write up

I'm not afraid of some customization. I will try and see what happens. If I have to have new foam molded to the original seats, then I will. I'm hoping to have a lovely female occupying that seat eventually so I may as well do it right, now

 

I would now go with checking the rails, at least try to keep the sliding forward motion. If all fails, well, your rear passengers will have to be dogs.

 

I think I'm leaning towards taking the seats to an upholstery shop and having foam custom made for the stock seat to fit the 4runner skins. It'll be costly but I want to do it right. Thoughts?

 

aka I'm tossing in the towel, raising the white flag, selling my tacoma because I can't weld.





Kidding!!! I guess, they'll probably need both seats, or all 4, so they can mold it properly.

 

I can weld with the best of them but this isn't something I really want to take on. I'd hate to get into an accident and have something snap because it was a hackjob. I'm also very close to completing the truck so an extra 500-600 bucks is worth it in my opinion. I dunno. Still thinking about it.

 

http://www.plantedtechnology.com/pr...et-toyota-tacoma-1995-5-2004-driver-left.html ,
apparently these are universal seat mounts and you could easily get any seat and spec it up to this. Haven't pulled the trigger on it though.

 

Yeah, theres that too. You can cut off the old mounts, line it up on the universal mounts and bolt them down.

 

If I went with Recaro's I would absolutely get these, but they don't help in my case. Mounting the seats isn't the problem, it's the capability of the seat that is lacking. I use the space behind my seats constantly and I don't allow passengers back there. Dog cages, tools, packages, anything really...

 

PS - The part that is lacking is the ability to scoot forward to allow access to the xtra cab.

 

....Forgot bout that.

 

Looks like I can get a 4Runner Sport passenger side seat

After speaking to an upholstery shop, it looks like this is how I'm going to have to do it. They're similar enough to where it should work.

 

"Should work?" Really would like to know if this worked or not? I am about to go pick up a Tacoma bucket myself to find out!

 

To be honest, I haven't gotten to the passengers seat yet. Because I have the xtra cab, I would lose the slide forward functionality and I can't do that. Pretty much my only option is to frankenstein the 4runner stuff to the original seat. Not even sure that is possible. However, if you have a 4 door tacoma the sport seat should work just fine.

 

Thanks for your reply, from what I have read the set frames and how they mount to the base are indeed totally different. If you have time to test if the rail would slide on to the 4runner seat this would be great help!

 

This is a great write up. I ended up going with aftermarket replacements just to avoid detailing with making the brackets fit in the Tacoma. You also saved about 1k too.

 

I got hold of some Tacoma bucket seats finally to figure this out for myself today with inspection of the actual parts in hand and in my truck.

It looks like there are bumps stops on the rails to stop the seat from sliding too far forward, as well as the rivets holding in the feet themselves that must all be ground off in order to get the rails off due to a bearing carrier inside the rail. This being the case I can see why the op decided to just cut the feet off and swap them over, save a step and the rails do appear identical otherwise. I did not grind and try since my Tacoma buckets are an upgrade believe it or not above the stock bench (not 60/40), but this is how it looks and now this process makes all the sense to me!

Note of Caution: When I removed my 4Runner seats that I had banged into place, I found I actually bent the hump in the body where the seats mount on the front outside and needed to straighten them back out a bit in order to bolt the Tacoma buckets back in. Be careful doing this job guys, it would have sucked big time if I ruined the body where the seats mount in the process. I dont think this occurred while I was beating as I was watching very closely and it looked good before bolting in, so I think I used too much torque snugging the bolts into place which started crushing the floor pan hump as it pulled the cage nut into an angle it wasn't meant for.

From all my experience I would definitely recommend the method in this write up, swap your feet so they will bolt up. Forget beating parts into submission and hoping they sit level and that you dont ruin your cab floor in the process, and dont waste your time trying to swap rails because its only more grinding parts unnecessarily. Only reasons I didnt do this in the first place is I didnt have the bucket seats to swap the feet over. With the seat in hand I can say this is the way to do it now.

I have not abandoned the 4Runner seat project, since the 4Runner seats are definitely more comfy but I did get bucket seats and they are better than what I had and I can drive the truck again now. I want to get the trim on the 4Runner seat painted to match my interior and then I am thinking of getting some fabric that matches the seats to just insert into the door panel center to give it sort of the 4Runner gray interior two tone effect as below.

Guess one more side note, 4runner seats in tan match the Tacoma interiors way better than the grays.

 

Subbed

 

Here is the video I made of the process. No welding OR grinders needed!

Good luck! It was worth it!

https://youtu.be/LGba84U-Jm8

 

Glad you got it in there but..

Careful bending metal back and forth, you may have stressed your seat mounting foot to the point of reducing your own personal safety in an accident. Is that a stress crack I already see in that front outside foot (16:43)?

Also it looks like you may have mashed up your floor pan beating the feet into submission (16:50), and it may prove difficult to ever get a Tacoma seat in your Tacoma again.. as I mentioned in my cautionary tale above. Hope this is only illusion..

Here is my updated plan with no welding, grinding, and even no mangling of seat parts or factory Tacoma floor pans required.. and even factory fabrics to match my interior, S-Runner seats!

 

Absolutely! Thank you for the warnings. I was very careful not to stress the metal too much. No there aren't any stress cracks or I would have scrapped the project. But, just in case I weakened the metal legs, I kept the seatbelt bolted to the floor on the drivers side for exactly that reason. I don't want to be a passenger in a seat that comes loose! The floor pan is not bent either I'm happy to report.