Sat May 02, 2020 8:09 am by WEW51L110
The seat solution I came up with came from an auto recycling yard in the form of bucket seats from a 2002 BMW 330i. I, too, originally was looking for seat(s) with built-in seat belts. I’m nowhere close to 6’ tall, but both my sons are over 6’. Anyway, what I found during my searching is that the domestic seats - Ford/GM, etc. tend to measure fairly long front to back and if I had put them in my truck, there would have been very little room to swing my legs past the door post to get in/out. My wife had already said the seat needed to have lumbar support, so I was starting the search with a strict set of requirements. My search was not being productive until we measured the BMW seats, but they didn’t have built-in seat belts. So I had to compromise by installing a bracket for the top mount of the three-point belt arrangement. I just could not find a way to have my cake and eat it too. I did replace the original steering column with an after market unit due to the engine swap/column interference issue already mentioned by others. So, since you’re not swapping out the steering column, you’re over 6’ tall, I’d suggest, if you don’t need to replace that original seat, reupholster it, adapt seat belts to work with it or like I did, find a seat(s) that will get you the best arrangement to meet all criteria. My BMW seats were $80 each from the recycler, are 8 way adjustable, but I can’t us all 8 ways because even at my height, the seats are back as far as they will go. But, I can swing my legs to get past the door post and the seats have lumbar support! When installing the seats we did need to put in some metal to raise the seats 1 1/2” for best visibility/position. We removed the head rests to prevent blocking the rear window, too.
Just like any modification, once you make one change, the snowball starts rolling toward the next change to compensate. If you can live with that old seat reupholstered, that might be your best option.
L110 owner since 1974, finally rebuilt 2014.