[alfa] Spider Seats redux

["Bain, Bill" <Bill.Bain@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The Veloce seats from the later (post-'85) Spiders are *much* more
comfortable than the earlier ones, and, of course, they bolt right in.
The extended knee bolster makes a huge difference.

I have mid-80''s Recaros from a 911 in my Spider (they were really all I
could find in blue that matched my interior).  Use the Recaro passenger
side as the driver's and vice versa so that the seat back adjusters are
on the *inside* instead of the standard Recaro mount on the outside of
the seats.  The Alfa tracks bolt to the seats fine, but the Recaros are
wider so the outside track is too far to the outside by about 3/4".  I
made a bracket out of 1/8" steel that bolts to the Alfa seat mounting
points (the inside track simply bolts through the steel plate and the
plate bolts to the Alfa floor mount on the outside and then the wider
Recaro track mounts to the plate using a nylock nut.  The passenger side
is trickier since it is narrower than drivers side -- the mounting
points are the same but the space between the console and the door is
narrower.  With seats with pronounced side bolsters, the only solution I
found was to raise the seat up so that the slope of the bolster will
permit to clear the console.  Serendipitously, the 911 mounts raised the
seat just enough, but you could get the same effect using longer
mounting bolts and washers for spacers.

I used the Alfa tracks since the Porsche tracks put the slider adjuster
too close to the door sill.  If you could find a set of Recaro tracks
with a center adjuster, that would be better since the Alfa adjuster
isn't long enough to clear the longer knee bolster of the Recaros.  I
made a clip to hold the shoulder belt by clamping a karabiner to one of
the head rest posts.

Bottom line -- I'd try to find the later Spider seats and try those, and
then, if those aren't adequate and depending on how "creative" one wants
to be, you can mount aftermarket seats -- it'll just take some
engineering.

Hope this helps. 

Bill Bain 
AROC Atlanta 
'83 Spider (need the A/C fixed) 
'87 Milnao (A/C works!
--
to be removed from alfa, see /bin/digest-subs.cgi
or email "unsubscribe alfa" to majordomo@domain.elided