Replacing Second Row Seat - Captain Chair For 60/40 Bench

pghsuburban · November 25, 2008

Hey there,

I have a 2004 Suburban and want to swap out my second row captain chairs for a bench...but am not sure if this is possible and/or how easy it is? I am not very mechanical, so it would need to be just nuts and bolts...no welding!

Thanks,

Mike

dkjbama · November 25, 2008

Time to start calling junkyards. I suspect that buying a new bench from the stealer would be prohibitively expensive. After that I wouldn't think it would be so involved as to require welding.

Can anyone verify that the floorpan of bucket seat trucks is the same as bench seat trucks?

This is what I would do. You could go to a dealer and look for a burb of that same body style with a bench seat just to get an idea how its mounted. Take digital photos if you can, or you could look in ebay motors to see if there's a pic of the backseat of a bench seat truck.

Then I'd look under your carpet to see if the mounting holes are there on your truck. It'd be great if they're already there and tapped for you, but if not, you could always drill and bolt them up with grade 8 hardware with a steel backing plate on the underside of the truck to keep the bolts from pulling through.

Don't forget the seatbelts and hardware from the donor truck if your captains chairs have the integrated seatbelts.

grogman45459 · November 25, 2008

Hey there,

I have a 2004 Suburban and want to swap out my second row captain chairs for a bench...but am not sure if this is possible and/or how easy it is? I am not very mechanical, so it would need to be just nuts and bolts...no welding!

Thanks,

Mike

I did this a while back on my '01 Yukon XL when our family grew from 3 kids to 5. It was funny - the dealer will quote you all of the materials to assemble a bench seat, then all assembly required by you - I think it priced out at close to $1500. No worries, e-bay is your friend. Look around on-line for a while, call some auto recylers. I paid around $500 for mine with shipping. Came out of an '02 YXL even though mine is an '01 so the stitching pattern is sightly different, but color is fine.

Bolts all lined up fine, really nothing to it, take two seats out & drop in the bench.

TORQUE1024 · October 22, 2009

Time to start calling junkyards. I suspect that buying a new bench from the stealer would be prohibitively expensive. After that I wouldn't think it would be so involved as to require welding.

Can anyone verify that the floorpan of bucket seat trucks is the same as bench seat trucks?

This is what I would do. You could go to a dealer and look for a burb of that same body style with a bench seat just to get an idea how its mounted. Take digital photos if you can, or you could look in ebay motors to see if there's a pic of the backseat of a bench seat truck.

Then I'd look under your carpet to see if the mounting holes are there on your truck. It'd be great if they're already there and tapped for you, but if not, you could always drill and bolt them up with grade 8 hardware with a steel backing plate on the underside of the truck to keep the bolts from pulling through.

Don't forget the seatbelts and hardware from the donor truck if your captains chairs have the integrated seatbelts.

I have a 2004 z71 with 40/60 bench seat. Do you know of a retorfit that can be installed to make the seat back recline?? Help

TORQUE1024 · October 22, 2009

Hey there,

I have a 2004 Suburban and want to swap out my second row captain chairs for a bench...but am not sure if this is possible and/or how easy it is? I am not very mechanical, so it would need to be just nuts and bolts...no welding!

Thanks,

Mike

Mike did you find a solution to your problem?? I have just the reverse concern>