I have been busy this past winter replacing the interior of my 73 vert, and one part of this was buying new TMI Sport ll front bucket seats to replace the stock buckets. After stripping out the old carpet, and laying down sound barrier and new carpet I placed the new seats in position and realized that they were way too far forward. With the sliders all the way back, when you place your hands on the wheel your elbows are jammed into the seat back. All the way forward and nobody could actually get into the front seat much less drive the car. I figured I must have done something wrong, checked my work, and it looks like its done right. So I reach out to TMI, who refused to talk to me, referring me to the vendor I purchased from. I reach out to the CJ rep and long story short after 4 weeks they tell me I have the wrong seat mounts and they will send me the correct one, and then after 9 weeks they finally admit that the seats that I was sold were not designed for the seat mounts they I bought from them and are linked to the seats on their web site, AND they don't have a seat mount that is. In fact, if you look closely at the episode of Wheeler Dealers featuring the Mach 1, where they also used TMI seats, you can see Mike driving the road course looking a bit like a T-rex. So it appears that this is a pretty major design problem.
In the mean time, I had placed an order through TMI for a matching back seat, and since they consider this a custom order, its not returnable. So, I'm stuck with these seats, which I really like except for the part about them not working. CJ did agree to refund me the price of the seat mounts and let me keep them with the understanding that they were off the hook. So I fabricated an extension that bolts both to the seat and also to the seat mount. I wanted to alert the members to this issue and also share the solution that I came up with. The extension effective moved the position of the seats back 5 inches, which accommodates me easily at 6'0".
I bought a couple of 36"x1" steel bars from home depot, cut them in half and drilled four holes to line up with the two holes in the seat mount, with one set of holes 5" offset from the original ones. Also had to drill a third hold in the seat mount bracket.
After that, I bolted the extension to the black bar which is part of the seat mount. Then bolted the both of them to the seat. This effectively moved the anchoring of the seat mount to the seat backward by 5 inches.
The extension is shown in the foreground with the original on the left. And yes I do have Hot Wheels hanging with my tools. :whistling:
And here is a pic of the seats mounted and pushed all the way back. I gave the extension assembly a shot of black paint before mounting. I used to wonder what you guys meant when you talked about "fitment issues". I know exactly what you mean now. It took a while but I got the TMI seat mounts to bolt onto the floor and then get the two different parts of the TMI seat mounts to align together.
Still have the door cards to go, and now that the seats are in, liking them alot.
Scott
yahoo termination page
In the mean time, I had placed an order through TMI for a matching back seat, and since they consider this a custom order, its not returnable. So, I'm stuck with these seats, which I really like except for the part about them not working. CJ did agree to refund me the price of the seat mounts and let me keep them with the understanding that they were off the hook. So I fabricated an extension that bolts both to the seat and also to the seat mount. I wanted to alert the members to this issue and also share the solution that I came up with. The extension effective moved the position of the seats back 5 inches, which accommodates me easily at 6'0".
I bought a couple of 36"x1" steel bars from home depot, cut them in half and drilled four holes to line up with the two holes in the seat mount, with one set of holes 5" offset from the original ones. Also had to drill a third hold in the seat mount bracket.
After that, I bolted the extension to the black bar which is part of the seat mount. Then bolted the both of them to the seat. This effectively moved the anchoring of the seat mount to the seat backward by 5 inches.
The extension is shown in the foreground with the original on the left. And yes I do have Hot Wheels hanging with my tools. :whistling:
And here is a pic of the seats mounted and pushed all the way back. I gave the extension assembly a shot of black paint before mounting. I used to wonder what you guys meant when you talked about "fitment issues". I know exactly what you mean now. It took a while but I got the TMI seat mounts to bolt onto the floor and then get the two different parts of the TMI seat mounts to align together.
Still have the door cards to go, and now that the seats are in, liking them alot.
Scott
yahoo termination page
