airlaird

Well many may not approve. Being 5' 5" I can see very well over the dash...but I like to have a higher seating position when i drive. I guess it is from my days have SUV's. I have also felt that my butt was dragging the gound when i sat..so i changed it.
Atached is my seat mods done on both front seats. This mod pivots the rear end 2.5". There is Japanese bolt manufacturer in Dallas and I went there with the factory bolt to get the right threading. I should have photo'd the bolt but I did not. It is a 3" bolt. So there is at least a 1/2 inch inside the bolt hole to secure it.
airlaird

airlaird

As you can see, this install is easy, clean and again, raises your butt 2-3 inches. The nuts used are acting simply as spacers. The mod was about 10 bucks and I have a much better view over the hood. This should not affect airbag deployment as the seats have no sensors where the bolts attach to.
airlaird

thunderbt3

Do you have the power seat at the highest setting? I'm 5'6" and can see fine without the seat setting maxed out, not riding ghetto style either. Also, why just the rear? I believe the power seats have the lower seat tilt adjustment.

Did you match the correct grade of bolt? As an engineer, I would be concerned if that bolt ever bent/stripped/snapped, it might cause an accident. When the insurance companies do their investigation, they might find you at fault because the seat was modified and won't payout.

Also, since you are only raising the rear of the seat, you are putting the front bolts in bending which is a big engineering no-no. If you get rear ended hard, the heads of the front bolts would pop off cuz they are in bending, the rear bolts would just bend back or snap, and you would end up flat on your back, staring up at the roof. Your knees get pinned against the steering wheel/dash.

I wouldnt recommend doing this mod, but to do it "correctly" I would raise both front and rear mounts. I would also replace the spacer nuts with wide washers .

ohsixMTee

iTrader: (2)

That doesn't look like a very good idea as far as safety is concerned.....

airlaird

Yep,same grade bolts. The bolts is not bent..that is an optical illusion. It is impossible to raise the front Part of the seat because the bolts are in horizontal It's all a choice up to driver to do this mod. Because the bolts are vehicle grade, I feel comfortable with the mod. I saw well before The mod...but it just felt like I was rubbing my butt on the ground
Airlaird

combat mediC

iTrader: (1)

Sitting on a phonebook is safer that than rigged crap.

airlaird

Well, then you don't do the mod.
Airlaird

its rayden

i hope that's safe

thunderbt3

Vehicle grade bolts? Never heard of such thing.... Metric Grade 8.8? 9.8? 10.9? 12.9? Did you torque to spec or just torque the hell out of them?

One thing we learned in strength of materials and machine design courses is truly avoid putting fasteners in bending. If something is going to break, it will usually be the fastener before whatever it's bolted to. The reason is cracks can easily form in the bottom of the thread of the bolt. It doesn't matter that the bolt doesn't look bent. When you torque down the bolt, the seat is putting a bending load on both front and rear mount bolts. The worse is when the bolt is subjected to cyclic loading. In this case, the seat and seat bolts are subject to acceleration and braking forces which will fatigues the material and start forming micro cracks in the threads. The micro cracks will grow from repeated cyclic loadings.

We analyzed this failure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJL4-wGPjCo
The front rod ends (bolts with a spherical bearing on one end) were subject to cyclic acceleration and braking forces. When the driver hit the brakes, there was massive load transfer to the front. The rod ends had fatigued so much that they gave way and sheared off, resulting in the tire AND upright assemblies to separate from the car. The tires kept on going and bounced into the bleachers, knocking a woman off the top bleacher onto the ground and cracking her head open.

Taken from: http://www.fastenal.com/web/services...tedJointDesign

"In this case, the bolt or bolts are almost always subjected to non-linear loadings from bending and shear forces. This quickly leads to bolt failure."

"Some applications subject the joint to a bending force, which results in a combination of tension, and shear load acting simultaneously on the fastener. Extreme caution must be taken when working with a joint subjected to bending."

But then again, this is your car, your mod. No one can tell you what to do or not to do, its your choice. We're only suggesting that it's probably not the wisest thing to do.

airlaird

Good points..I will have to reconsider the mod....I appreciate the facts !
airlaird

its rayden

good job thunder.

potmilkz

a few bolts can make a difference between living or dying.

KillerG

thunder...droppin the knowledge bomb.

and to op: buy asspads and put them in ur pants, problem solved