Advice needed to fit new interior

[mazzo]

Hi

I bought myself a nice interior from a Rover 200. Nothing flash, just fabric seats, but I am struggling to fit them into my HC (early type).

I had put Manta seats in the front and managed to fabricate brackets and with some welding, they went in. These ones, however are too tall on the Manta subframe. So I will have to do something else. Hopefully someone will have done something similar (and I did notice someone did Rover 400 into an HB).

The real problem is the back seats. They are the 60/40 rear split type and have a hinge in the middle (no problem) but thick pins that protrude from the edge of the seat - which should go into the wheel arch. Problem is these pins won't come out and they are miles too big.

See the photos, but my questions would be:

How much room can I take off the wheel arch? My idea would be to bang them around a bit and then put a hole in for the pins to fit into. Then weld a cap on the outside so it doesn't leak.

It's annoying because I took measurements which made me go for 200 seats to start with.


Would want to either reshape the top of the arch in by about 1.5 inches - or cut off the top and weld a plate with less angled shape. (can't eplain easily what I mean....)


Here you can see the pin easily. It is BIG and won't come out (it would have to be cut off if I had to remove it)


Again you can see the pin, but also the angle of the seat. A viva wheelarch is very square in comparison.

Advice would be very helpful!

[lambaj]

Stock tyres allow a fair bit of room in the arches, but you have to remember full susupension travel, and what happens when only one wheel is pushed in to the arch - it moves inwards as the axle rotates about the centre of the diff. This can mean you have less room that you think.

Banging the arches about will work to some extent, but you will have fun moving the arch close to the rear bulkhead/webs. I tryed this on my HA which is very similar internally. I had to use a sledge to get the arches only 1/2 and inch wider. You will almost certainly tear welds and split seams moving the arches more than 1/2" or so. 1.5" is a lot

Look further into re-shaping the seat profile, as you are looking to remove material from the seat, you could get the cover off and re-shape the steel backing and foam to suit then re-fit the cover material ?

Just some thoughts
Tony (HA21)

[junkyarddog]

^^^^^WHS,Don't modify the arches,try and change the seats to suit the car,or maybe get the original vauxhall rear seat covered in a similar material to the front rover ones.

[Jon-HPF]

Mazzo , I had a similar problem with the viva e , when i fitted a suzuki gti interior - Front seats a had to fabricate onto the viva fframe so that they slide back and forth a la viva , but rears were 50/50 fold downs - but the exact area around the arch was were the pivot bracket would have gone (no chance) - basically i bolted both seat backs together and cut the frame work of each seat where it meets the arch , then just folded the excess material aound and secured at the back .
I cut out the rear X brace and used a pair of normal garden gate hinges bolted at bottom of seats and through the upright panel adjacent to the arches.
Cant seem to find any pics of the rears folded down showing the hinges / cut away area - im sure i took some . If you want i can take some more and upload so you get a better idea.
I think everyone would agree thats it better to chop the seats rather than alter the arches.

Cheers - Jon

[mazzo]

Thanks all.

Tony, it was the amount of space that was available that concerned me, but I am using standard (155x13) tyres and have no intention of putting on anything different, so hopefully there seems to be quite a lot of space spare. Banging it around will split welds as you say, so Bulldog (the welding guru) came up with a cunning plan!

I will cut about 1 inch off the wheel arches from the top to bottom in the area of the rear seat. The top slightly overhangs and that is what I want to remove. Then I will weld in a flat box section, allowing me to put in the pivot holes for the seats.

Jon, your seats look good in the Viva. I am loathed to mess about with the rear seat frame because I bought an interior from a newish car that had been written off. Got it for a song, but it is immaculate so cutting it up would be a shame.

I sorted out the front seats. Quite pleased with myself. Wasn't sure what to do as they wouldn't fit onto the manta seat subframes. Ended up bending the front lugs and screwing direct to the floor. At the back, I welded onto the frame some 10mm screw thread. By using two nuts on each thread, I've been able to adjust the height of the seat to where I think is comfortable.


Screw thread welded onto frame


Front lugs made flat and then attached direct to floor


Seats now fixed into place

Thanks all. Will update as I get on with it.

[Jon-HPF]

Neat idea on the seat hight adjustment ! and great looking seats - should offer a bit more support than the standard viva ones me thinks .

[classicscrap]

The seats look good Maz. Does that mean you won't be needing the Manta subframes any more? Let me know if you want to sell them back to me please.
Brian