Well, the NU Fairlane rear seat swap is finally done. Not without a bit of fucking around though, but it's done as of about 10min's ago lol..
Rear seat backs were a straight swap over, lined up with factory mounting points etc. Simple enough. The latches were the seat back lock into position needed the matching AU style bracket/latch for it to work. I had a look at trying to modify the original mount so the the locking pin was lower down to line up with the hook of the NU seats, but the pin was way too big and when it came time to mount the AU style side bolsters, the original mounts fouled on the inner part of the bolsters.
So off with the original brackets. 2x 12mm bolts to remove and a fair bit of forward/backward bending to break the spot welds holding the bracket to the body of the car.
Dummied up the AU style bracket with the seat in the locked position. With the bracket parallel to the mounting area, the bracket sat almost a whole inch away from where it needed to be bolted to.
Basically the bracket needed to be spaced a fair amount so that it could be bolted to the body of the car. Took me a while to figure out what to do, but noticed a few parts I could use by pulling apart the locking pin assembly.
Decided to use the funny looking shaped bracket (has a block welded to it with a threaded hole) to mount to the body of the car, then mount the AU bracket to that bracket using the bolt half of the locking pin.
Cut out a small section out of the bracket so it could fit nicely around the wheel arch and cut the locking pin in half so I could use the threaded bolt half of it.
With a bit of trial and error, I worked out where I needed to mount the bracket to the body. Drilled a couple small holes into the bracket and through the body and used some decent sized self tapper's to secure it in place.
Grabbed the AU bracket and drilled the original hole out larger to so the locking pin bolt could fit through. I have a fairly thick stainless spacer on the back side of the AU bracket to take up the extra clearance so that the bracket sits parallel to the seat latch and mounting point on the body.
Lined the hook in the seat up with the latch, then tightened the bolt to hold it in place. Isn't exactly the most ideal way of doing things honestly, but it works fine and seems to hold in position just about as well as the original EF seat does (you can pull forward on the headrests and there is only the slightest movement from the AU latch moving inside the hook. It's one of those parts that isn't going to move around a hell of a lot, so as long as it holds the seat in position securely, I'm happy.
Then had to do the same for the other side.
Then it came time to mount the bolsters. This is the reason why Fairlane ones won't fit. Compared to AU SR bolsters, the Fairlane ones are on fucking 'roids.
Made use of the AU SR bolsters as they are known to fit, and just made up a horizontal 'locking pin' so that they lock into the original notch that the EF/EL bolsters lock into.
Yes my mounting point was a decent sized nail lol. Drilled a hole slightly smaller than the diameter of the nail and then slowly tapped the nail through so it was a tight fit. The half of the nail where the head is locks into the factory notch on the EF, bottom mounting point lines up with the original hole so it's a fairly straight forward fit.
Was planning to transfer the leather from the NU bolsters to the AU SR ones, but on closer inspection, the bolsters are shaped a little differently at the top, therefore the stitching wouldn't follow the lines of the SR bolster and would probably look a bit funny. Decided to leave the SR ones in as is, and maybe take them to a trimmer later on to get trimmed to match the NU leather.
Bottom part of the seat was a bitch. Not that it was overly hard, but more the case of eye-lining the AU style hoops and the plastic brackets to make sure they were mounted in fairly close proximity to where they need to be exactly. I did it by laying the seat down and pushing it into position, lifting the front of the seat gradually and marking with a marker pen where the hoops were touching the carpet. Removed the seat, grabbed out the drill and then hoped that wherever I made those marks, were correct or close enough lol. After a few drilled holes followed by the use of big centre punches to link the drilled holes to form a slot, they brackets were pushed in nicely, then the seat dropped into place. Done!
Pretty happy all in all! The rear seat is comfy as hell, really holds you in and feels really plush. The bottom doesn't exactly line up perfectly with the driveshaft tunnel, but it's close enough to nearly not notice unless you're really picky. Everything else sits pretty well.
I have noticed there is slightly less leg room in the rear though, not by much, but I noticed it straight away. One of the best features I've noticed is rear cup holders, lovin' it!
Pic's are a bit shit, we're taken at like 8.30pm in darkness with the flash on, so every little crease in the leather shows up lol. Will get some better ones through the week in natural light.
So, that's the interior pretty much done and dusted really. I have a few small things to finish off, such as dying the rear door arm rests satin black like the front doors, work out a way of securing the rear quarter window trims so they don't rattle off when the music is off (have currently lost all the original screws holding the drivers side trim in, probably when vacuuming the interior after they have been rattled loose
), fit Ghia rear door map pockets, maybe a new hoodlining etc.
Not much else to update on really. Have fitted my Digital Design CXS6.5 rear speakers after having to repair one that had a slight problem with part of the speaker cone spider coming away from the basket, but all is working fine again and I'm loving the sound.
Sound system will probably stay as is for a while, although I'm on the look out for a 2nd DD3512 just so I can complete the Digital Designs speaker/sub arrangement lol.
Received a J3 programmer from TiPerformance (big thanks to Jase again
) and have booked the Fairmont in for a dyno run @ Protune at the end of this month. Have had a chat to the guys there and depending on how busy they are, they might let me make a few changes to the tune between runs, best of all, most likely free of charge, so long as they don't have to wait too long between runs and don't have other customers to attend to. Looking forward to that, mostly so I can see how close/far off the current tune is and see how much of a gain can be made with alterations to the tune. Should be fun!