Hi Marten:

Many if not all vans use pedestals for the front seats.. so you might save a lot of hrs by checking a few out. I have another suggestion, try to either keep the front open or try to incorporate a glove box door to lock your stuff in if your at a show or anyplace you can stash your GPS or camera or anything your trying to hide in the truck.. like your wifes purse etc..

I haven't got to check out your progress, every time I am down there I have too much work to get done on the trailer. this week-end is dig a hole for putting down a ft of sand and then about 8 in of crushed stone to put the trailer in a permanent spot .   Then I need to run 150' of #6/2 wiring to install a 30amp rv plug at the trailer. I need to run an Ethernet cable and water.. I bought a used septic tank out of Brockville  A nice big 3400ltr heavy double compartment plastic tank.. It's huge but less than half the price of a new one..Should only have to pump that puppy once every 6 years or more..

I also bought a boat..   just a small 16ft wide deep hull , 20 horse Johnson sea-horse and a nice aluminum easy load trailer. I just want to do a little fishing and it seems like there is a 1000 little lakes all around that area..I have not been fishing in about 30 years . Looking forward a little R & R. I will catch up to u one of these times..

Chevy Dan, that looks cool. Did you make them? What prevents them from rocking side to side?

Hi Chuk. I know you are busy. That is OK with me. I have made very little progress anyway. Work has been crazy. My wife has had an accident as well so dealing with her has been a challenge as well. She has a concussion so trying to have intelligent conversation is tricky right now. I am thinking of incorporating some sort of glove box idea into the seat risers. Not sure how to do it but have a good idea on where I want to end up. Seen one where the guy has them opening up sideways so you need to open the door then you can open the box.

Henry, I really should get out and see your place as well. Hoping after Labour day things will settle down, then school will be in and any work not done will magically be OK.

Anyone else reading this, thanks for all your patience while I try and figure out how to build this truck. My entire life has been building, using plans and spec's. This has build has none of that, just a finished picture in my head. I know where I want to end up, not sure how to get there at times. And the other thing is trying to get parts as a reasonable price.

Marten

 

No, I did not make them.  I snagged the picture off the internet.  Those are either original or reproduction Super Stock Dodge seat brackets.  Here is another view of them.

 Mike said

Those would be easy to make. All you would need is a CNC plasma cutter, press brake, TIG welder and aluminum.

Hey, wait a minute, I have all those things

 

What a good brother to have 

Ok so now I need the whole sizing, alum thickness, riser height, an idea on how to put glove boxes in it, where to get that shiny colour of alum. Well time for a beer!!!!

Thought I would update this part of the build.  I am excited, picked up a bunch of steel last week for the hot rod.  Part of the order was for seat risers.  Not sure if this is a lesson or a chance for you to help/comment, perhaps both.

This is a picture of the seats in the truck.  Used wooden block to get the height where I like it.  Actually did it for the driver seat and copied it for the passenger seat.  Put a steering column in temporarily as well to get the feel of what I wanted.  Also put on the drivers door so I could get a feel for the arm on the door, out the window.  Lightspeed Mike says it needs to be comfortable or I won't drive it.  While I was at it took some cardboard and made up a centre console.  Column has shifted since I set up the seats so it is a bit funny looking in this picture.

 

 

Measured up what I needed for some steel, got the steel guys to bend up some 1/8" cold rolled steel for this.  Actually got the steel for the box as well but that is another day.  This picture shows the profile I ordered.

 

The plan is to make it a 3 sided box, 2 sides and a front.  I was thinking of leaving the back open.  The seats can be flipped forward to get into the back seat but since I don't have that I can still use the feature.  With the back open I

can put stuff under the seat.  Kind of like this but mitered joint.

 

 

I also picked up some stuff from an auto body supply shop.  Will wash the steel down and coat it in epoxy primer.  This is suppose to stop any rusting.  Guy was telling me that I can clean it, cover it in epoxy primer and then weld it but first sand off the primer where the welding will take place.  Then touch up the primer afterwards.

So that is the plan.

 

Had a chance to work on the truck seats today.   So this is your chance to tell me if I am doing things right or wrong please.  Going at it based on what I think is right and looking at other peoples projects.  First was to cut the plates to be able to weld them together.  Left the top square as I will be mounting the front of the seat as close to the front of the riser as possible.  Bottom is 45 because I thought that was easier.

 

Next was to tack weld it together, ensuring it was square.

One of my kids was hanging around here so thought I would have some father son time with him.  So if you want to hang around my place, eat our food, etc. you get to do something on the hot rod.  In this case he did some welding for me while I was fitting more parts together.

  

Sorry don't know how to rotate this image.  Someone help here?

Welding complete.

My son did one riser and then decided it was time to leave, go figure, so I did the second one.  And then the grinding to make it all look nice.

Next step is to cut the holes for the seats to mount to at the front.  They were clipped in the original car.  Back will have a hole drilled and a nut welding to the riser to fasten the seat.  Then mount them to the truck.  Looks like I will have to cut he bottom a bit to get over the ribs in the floor.  I guess I should weld a plate to the underside of the cab as well so I can bolt the riser to the cab.  Correct?  Oh almost forget I will coat them in epoxy primer before they are mounted as well.  Will eventually paint them, not sure if I should do red as that is the truck colour, gray as that will be the interior colour for the fabric or black and make them fade away.

 

 

So making progress is slower then I thought but had a chance over the last couple of weekends to work on the risers again.  After getting them all welded up and ground down, I put them in the truck to line them up and make sure they still fit.

That worked well until I put a straight edge on top of them

I did not realize that the floor of the truck has a hump in the middle.  It raised the middle about 1/2" higher then the outside.  Sat in the seats and knew that was not going to work.  So out them came and back to the saw and grinder they went.  Cut out 1/2" from the middle piece and then a wedge cut on the front edge.  More welding and grinding followed.

Try again, much better this time.

 

Then made up some plates to go under the floor of the truck because I did not think bolting the risers to the sheet metal floor would be a good idea.  Kind of like a giant washer.  Cut some 1/8" plate, drilled two holes in each piece and welding two 5/16" bolts to it.  Made up four plates, two for each seat.

Located the risers again, drilled holes and mounted the seats.  They will come out again to have the steel epoxy primed to prevent any rusting but I will do that when I prime all the rest of the steel I got for the new box.  Installed the seats and tried them out.  Felt good to me.

 

So learned a lot doing this little thing for sure.  Well big for me.  Can now order up the steering column, steering wheel, pedals.

Will also play with some ideas for a centre console in my spare time.

I hope this is done right, any suggestions are greatly appreciated.  Anything can be changed right now.

Looks like very good progress on the bottoms. not your bottom :)

That's good to know when I need some extra cash, when I'm your area. Ha !

Well fine then TMJ. I'll go for the loot hid under the couch pillows. I was gonna cut you in.
Matter of fact, here's a true story, sad as it may sound.

I was engaged 30 some years ago. Ya ya, I know, Beauty and the Beast thing.

Anyway, things got rough and she kept doing that beat on me thing. I'm 6'1" and 210, she'd be 5'2" and 100 dripping wet. Everything was peachy, until she moved into my house. ( I had 12 at the time)

Hang in there guys.

I booked to one of my empty apartments, and she tracked me down. (ya, hid the truck etc)

She thought I stole her Rngs, 10 years later I found them in the couch. HA !

Kinda went off topic huh ?

Disregard this post then,