Gen3 leather seats

[rossyroo]

How do you like the front leather seats in my Gen 3

They're not an OEM fitment ;-)

PS - it's for sale - search "hilux surf" on gumtree as I'm looking for a petrol one

[Jameswallace]

Id love leather for my 2nd gen

[Triv]

Which volvo are they from and how much work was involved in fitting them?

[kamaangir]

Very nice! I am looking for a complete set, so can do rear seats too.

[rossyroo]

pretty fiddly to do TBH
I looked at all sorts (as per discussions on t4r.org) Subaru outback seats would have been a great fit but the tan colour would not have worked.

Settled on these from a volvo V50 (I think)

They just about fit ..... I really should take them out again and adjust the brackets slightly. They are slightly high on the outside. But I can't get them any closer to the transmission tunnel - the inside rails are right up against it (same as originals in fact) ... the outside rails are no further out than the originals, but the seats have that wide clamshell plastic surround that you can see in the picture. If I ease the seat out from the tranny tunnel that plastic cover will start to touch the door panel when the seat is pulled fully forward (which it never is of course)

Or I could take the plastic cover off the side of the seat which would reduce its width to about the same as the original toyota - but then all the ugly mechanical levers and stuff will be visible (the Volvo seats have hight and tilt adjustment which the original toyota ones didn't)

So its a squeeze and a compromise. I used bits of dexion rail to mount the seats on, this helped because its full of holes and long slots which means everything can be slid around then nipped up tight when it all fits. Then you can take it all out and get the final positions of the brackets welded up - I haven't done that yet as still experimenting ...

Moral of the story is - surfs are narrower than you might think, and the tranny tunnel makes the width of the seat base quite narrow. The front inner bolt provides a kind of datum point as the front of the seat basically sits on the crossmember that runs through there. Therefore you can't get any seat lower than that point - which means that if you choose a seat that's high, you won't be able to lower it enough.

This is covered in many different posts on t4r by the way ... those guys seem to have success with GS300 and IS200 seats which are readily available. I would think about trying those before tackling volvo ones again