Why does Holden not make things easy by making things interchangeable in what appears to be a similar model car??? I have removed the bench seat from my WB panel van and wish to fit bucket seats after years of collecting HJ,X and Z parts I have a shed full of bucket seats but as some of you probably already know the bolt spacing is different with the earlier models being wider (this is with factory thread holes on the floor). To solve this dilemma I will rob a set of seats from my parked up WB DeVille to keep the project moving.

My next concern is the bench was held down with 3/8 inch UNC bolts but the spare factory holes in the floor near the trans mission tunnel to mount bucket seats are 5/16inch UNF, so all the holes in the WB bucket mounting base are 5/16. To fit the bench 3/8 bolts into the WB buckets do I just simply drill out the 5/16 hole in the WB Buckets mounting base and drill out the 3/8 UNC factory nut on the floor to allow a 5/16 longer bolt to pass through easily fitting a nut on the other side which in effect would have a nut piggy backing the factory nut welded under the floor and using grade 8 bolts, or would this not pass engineering??? Cheers MS

The factory 3/8 nuts welded under the floor are definitely bigger than the 5/16 nuts as if it has been done at factory. I was half a sleep when typing the original question but what I should of asked was can I drill the 5/16 hole out in the WB seat base to 3/8 therefore being able to use the factory threaded holes and bolts. The WB bench seat had two bolts side by side at the front and one at the rear both sides

Mate I would check to see they are not metric threads on a wb. It also makes actual wb ute bucket seats very hard to find as they did not have the height adjuster like the statesman.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mr Sir




As mentioned I can get the WB buckets, would it matter if they have the height adjuster,

---

Yes, the seat must remain unmodified to comply with ADR

quote:

---

do you think it would effect engineering if I was to drill the 8mm hole in the seat base out to 3/8 inch to take the larger bolt??

---

Yes, as above except in this case you are modifying the original rail in breach of ADR. The reduction in pitch strength (by drilling oversize) would be miniscule but nevertheless it is not allowed

You can have an original rail and a later seat as long as neither is modified, the modifications you are enquiring about do not fall under acceptable mdifications under the ADRs

aahh !!!! re coil them, good thinking. Now to find out if I can get a recoil to from 3/8 back to 8mm. I think you are on the money there that the dunces probably lost all the bolts when they had the bench seat out and tried screwing in 5/16 unc and stuffed it. I just don't want to go enlarging holes in seat bases, not just yet only as a last resort

Re-coil kits come with their own specific tap. You drill the worn thread out and then tap the hole with the re-coil tap. Then insert the new thread. The problem here will be if the butchered holes are to large for the re-coil tap. Otherwise it will be no more difficult than fixing the original thread. 5 minute job.