#ProjectRatsun Part 3: Interior Remodelling

I guess if I had to boil down the project to the tasks that absolutely needed to be done to the Ratsun, the most critical areas left to fix were, in no particular order: the rear brakes; rust repair; and the interior. Ideally, the brakes and the rust would have been the first two things to have been fixed, but I was starting to get pretty sick of the worn-out vinyl bench seat in the sweltering summer heat without air conditioning. To say that my back was uncomfortably hot on a regular basis would be the understatement of the year. I’m a patient person, but even I tired of feeling like my shirts needed to be wrung out after a trip across town…

The passenger’s side of the bench was actually not too bad—it had a couple of rips in it but was essentially intact. The driver’s side, on the other hand, was in pretty rough shape. Like Axl Rose, it seemed to make it through the 80s and 90s OK, but it was pretty in frightening shape by the time 2016 rolled around. This left me with two options: either reupholster the current bench seat, or try and do a seat swap with something that might fit into the standard seat brackets.

Reupholstering the bench seat seemed like the best way to go at first. That way, I would be able to pick out the colours and materials that I wanted for the seat, and I wouldn’t have to worry about drilling holes in the body or welding/cutting the seat brackets. I also would have had a chance to practice my upholstery skills, just to make my grandmother proud. This option seemed to be the most attractive after doing a quick search of used seats for sale in my area, and finding nothing that I really wanted my butt to sit in for the forseeable future. I cringed even harder when I started looking at prices for new seats (the cheapest Corbeaus I could find ran upwards of $500 US, hardware and shipping not included). In fact, I have figured out why they are called Bride seats—because if you spent any more money, you’d probably have to get married to them.

Then something fortuitous happened. I was browsing on Kijiji (Canada’s version of Craigslist) when I came across a listing for a 1989 Nissan 300ZX parts car. As luck would have it, the seats were still in it, and they were in excellent condition. No rips, no holes, no funny smells, nothing. A bit of online research yielded some interesting results—in the small Datsun 720 online community, I was surprised to find a couple of owners who had pulled off a Z32 seat swap with little muss or fuss. So I bought them, and laughed all the way home when it sunk in that I would be putting 300ZX seats in a 60 horsepower mini-truck.

Getting the standard seats out was a cinch—the hardest part was finding a 12mm socket in the toolbox. While getting the seats out was clean, what lied beneath them was the furthest thing from. I’m not sure if the previous owner tried to start a garden in the floorboards, but I ended up vacuuming about three pounds of dirt, dust and garbage from the cab. A roll of paper towel and about a half a bottle of cleaner later, the 300ZX seats were ready to go in. Surprisingly, the seat brackets lined up almost perfectly with the rails on the truck, and the mounting brackets were able to line up with at least some of the existing holes. After bolting in the seats to the holes that I felt were the best match, all that was left was to drill some holes in the floor, put some bushings in between the end of the seat rail and the bracket, and bolt everything all together.

Verdict

I’ll be the first admit that these seats are a bit of overkill for this truck. For around $250, they weren’t exactly a bargain for used seats either. But these seats are, without a doubt in my mind, the best thing I could have gotten for my truck. The cloth buckets are firm yet comfortable, and have the perfect amount of side bolstering for some aggressive touge road carving. Jokes aside, they are pretty much perfect for the truck, and I would highly recommend these seats for anyone looking to do a swap on their daily. They’re way too nice for my truck, but my back and ass aren’t complaining one bit.