I was out of town this past weekend for a friend's wedding, so not a lot happened with the cross member install. I do have the motor mount boxes painted and drying tonight, so hopefully tomorrow I will have them back in and cross member can be checked off the list.
As I'm sure is not uncommon among guys like us, I found car parts I wanted in the area the wedding was in LOL. My wife, being endlessly supportive and understanding, helped me pick up a usable set of bucket seats out of a Squarebody Suburban on the way back home.
As I recently found out when my brother in law picked up the same style of seats for his K-10 build, these seats look very similar to the factory Blazer buckets. But, they have adjustable recline via a knob, and more importantly they have off-the-shelf replacement foam available. As can be seen in this thread, the factory early '80s Blazer seats, which sites like LMC list foam for, do not actually work with that foam. The foam that's available is actually for the seats pictured above (we have confirmed this 100% on the seats my brother in law bought).
You can see one of my brother in law's seats below after new foam and new covers. He got the foam from LMC and the covers from Raybuck, although I think they just resell both items (I am obviously not involved with either company, that's just an example of what works with these seats).
The brackets for these seats will not work in a Blazer without modification. I am planning on adapting the factory Blazer seat brackets to fit the Suburban seats and put them at the desired height, which will allow me to also retain the flip-forward function of the passenger seat. Stay tuned for that, I'm not going to worry about it right now. But looking at the brackets and seats, it will be pretty straightforward if you have a welder.
In case anyone is wondering what the seats look side by side with a factory early '80s Blazer bucket seat, here you go. The Blazer (passenger) seat is sitting on the stock brackets but not bolted down, but it's within a half inch of factory location/height. The Suburban (driver side, but technically a passenger seat with the arm rest on the left, just for mock up) seat is propped up at a very rough approximate location/height with no brackets installed on the bottom (yet).
I imagine not many people will be interested in this seat swap since using more modern seats is popular, but I think this is a good option if you want stock-style and period-correct looking Squarebody seats with the option to recline and easily rebuild with new foam/covers.
As I'm sure is not uncommon among guys like us, I found car parts I wanted in the area the wedding was in LOL. My wife, being endlessly supportive and understanding, helped me pick up a usable set of bucket seats out of a Squarebody Suburban on the way back home.
As I recently found out when my brother in law picked up the same style of seats for his K-10 build, these seats look very similar to the factory Blazer buckets. But, they have adjustable recline via a knob, and more importantly they have off-the-shelf replacement foam available. As can be seen in this thread, the factory early '80s Blazer seats, which sites like LMC list foam for, do not actually work with that foam. The foam that's available is actually for the seats pictured above (we have confirmed this 100% on the seats my brother in law bought).
You can see one of my brother in law's seats below after new foam and new covers. He got the foam from LMC and the covers from Raybuck, although I think they just resell both items (I am obviously not involved with either company, that's just an example of what works with these seats).
The brackets for these seats will not work in a Blazer without modification. I am planning on adapting the factory Blazer seat brackets to fit the Suburban seats and put them at the desired height, which will allow me to also retain the flip-forward function of the passenger seat. Stay tuned for that, I'm not going to worry about it right now. But looking at the brackets and seats, it will be pretty straightforward if you have a welder.
In case anyone is wondering what the seats look side by side with a factory early '80s Blazer bucket seat, here you go. The Blazer (passenger) seat is sitting on the stock brackets but not bolted down, but it's within a half inch of factory location/height. The Suburban (driver side, but technically a passenger seat with the arm rest on the left, just for mock up) seat is propped up at a very rough approximate location/height with no brackets installed on the bottom (yet).
I imagine not many people will be interested in this seat swap since using more modern seats is popular, but I think this is a good option if you want stock-style and period-correct looking Squarebody seats with the option to recline and easily rebuild with new foam/covers.
