7 replies to this topic

[ReadySalted]

Hi there, I have an 88 mini and have just bought some Mk1 mini seats, they go really well with the interior, and early minis are my favorites.

However, it's not as simple as I might have hoped; I can't just unbolt the originals and put the mk1 ones in. The mk1 seats have a more primitive fitting type. They simply bolt with 4 bolts to the floor, and then hinge forward when nessecary, with no locking mechanism to keep the seat on the floor like the orginal seats have.

My first problem is of course fitting them - is there a special bracket I can buy (well, copy and make myself!), or is it just a case of drilling holes in my minis floor to fit the old ones, and coping with having what appears to be, quite unsafe seatage?!? What are some methods which have been done before?

The second problem of this is legality as far as MOTs are concerned. Will I have to put the original mini seats (the safer ones with the locking mechanism on), back into the mini before it can pass it's MOT?

Cheers guys, I look forward to hearing your options, as I'm going to tackle this problem tommorow and will post pics up for people who are going to do this in the future.

[Cooperman]

Very early seats had the seat brackets welded to the cross-member. Then they moved to the removeable brackets, 2 per seat, bolted into trapped 1/4" UNF nuts in the forward face of the cross member. I've never seen seats with the front end bolted to the floor.
After about 1976 the seats had to have rear anti-tilt restraints. This is part of the MoT. You could clamp the seats in place with jubilee clips for the MoT.

[Stevee]

i hate to say it but fitting mark 1 seats to your mini will fail your mot as there not the correct type of seat designed for the car :/ its not worth trying to get round it cause they can still fail it its best to make some subframes up.

[mini-geek]

i hate to say it but fitting mark 1 seats to your mini will fail your mot as there not the correct type of seat designed for the car :/ its not worth trying to get round it cause they can still fail it its best to make some subframes up.

What???????????



anyway any chance of some pics of the seats and fixing it will help to explain what is involved.

[ReadySalted]

They're these seats:
http://cgi.ebay.co.u...e=STRK:MEWAX:IT

When it comes round to be time for me to put the car through the MOT, I'll either have proper subframes in by then, or failing that I'll simply put the orignal ones in for it to pass.

I'm leaning more towards taking the seat subframes off the originals and putting them on the older seats. Do you guys think it's do-able?

[mini-geek]

they mount to the front vertical surface of the cross member, now for the tricky bit looking at mine the mounting holes are closer together on a mk1/2 than later minis so you might need to drill new holes and use riv nuts etc.

and you will need to make some primitive seat lock, that wont be dificult

[ReadySalted]

Ahh I understand. Cheers for the info, I thought they bolted to the front floor plan when I looked at them.
What are the conditions of this seat lock? eg. Does it have to be spring loaded?

Oh and presumably you've done this yourself? If so, how much more/ less comfy and practical are the older seats than the ones I have in at the mo? Besides looking a bit more retro, will they be as nice to tootle about in?


...sorry about having so many questions by the way!
Cheers

[mini-geek]

the lock just needs to be something to stop the seat tipping forward in an accident nothing fancy if you look at your old seats you should be able to get the idea of what's needed.

as for comfort never had a journey in early seats but I can't imagine them being too bad