With the extra time on my hands due to the recent situation, I finally got some time to install the 98 Buick Regal front seats in my Cutlass. I bought these about four years ago, since it's very difficult to find any maroon late model seats. My Cutlass originally had buckets, manual passenger side, and power drivers side (with the broken plastic coupler). Brief summary, about 5 hours on the passenger side, and 15 hours on the Drivers side later, and they are in. This is an estimate, as I would work on it when the weather was rainy, or when not frustrated. The mounting holes are about 1 1/2" wider than the Cutlass seats, but the same dimension front to back.
These were out of a four dour, and many posts talk about the lack of access to the rear seat. When I took them apart, I noticed that there's another hole that about 1" rearward that I moved the seat recline spring to. This caused other parts to need clearancing, but does permit the seat to be angled forward to permit access for back seat passengers.
The passenger seat is pretty straight forward, make an adapter piece for the front mounting holes, and redrill the holes in the rear.
The drivers seat was trickier. I learned that the 86 and earlier had a weak plastic transmission, which was evident as I took my seat apart, and the housing had age cracks in it. So moving forward, I noticed that the Buick power seat assembly looked remarkably close. I had to modify one of the motor positions to like up with the Cutlass seat track. Then had to swap the rear actuators from side to side to permit better drive cable routing, but everything is working well now.
With my 6'1'' height, I've got the seats down as far as they will go, and the seat position seems pretty good. The seats are definitely more supportive, I've not had it out on the road yet, as we are still cold and rainy here.
I've also got the rear seat to match, but not tackling that at this time.....
These were out of a four dour, and many posts talk about the lack of access to the rear seat. When I took them apart, I noticed that there's another hole that about 1" rearward that I moved the seat recline spring to. This caused other parts to need clearancing, but does permit the seat to be angled forward to permit access for back seat passengers.
The passenger seat is pretty straight forward, make an adapter piece for the front mounting holes, and redrill the holes in the rear.
The drivers seat was trickier. I learned that the 86 and earlier had a weak plastic transmission, which was evident as I took my seat apart, and the housing had age cracks in it. So moving forward, I noticed that the Buick power seat assembly looked remarkably close. I had to modify one of the motor positions to like up with the Cutlass seat track. Then had to swap the rear actuators from side to side to permit better drive cable routing, but everything is working well now.
With my 6'1'' height, I've got the seats down as far as they will go, and the seat position seems pretty good. The seats are definitely more supportive, I've not had it out on the road yet, as we are still cold and rainy here.
I've also got the rear seat to match, but not tackling that at this time.....
