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getty150 09-28-2025 11:56 PM

Rail extension?
 
I'd like to get a bit more leg room for the drivers seat...anyone know how i can achieve this?

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EODguy 09-29-2025 03:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by getty150 (Post 1246531)
I'd like to get a bit more leg room for the drivers seat...anyone know how i can achieve this?

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When we did our aftermarket armor (land cruiser) we had to put a piece of square tubing with holes drilled (big on top, small on bottom) for the old mounting locations and reversed holes for the seat rails (to get a nut inside the tube. Problem is that you will be raising the seat the thickness of the tube. We did it that way as it was faster (did 7 taliwagons) you may want to just add a stiffening plate and weld the nuts to it using a good stiff pattern material.

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getty150 09-29-2025 05:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EODguy (Post 1246532)
When we did our aftermarket armor (land cruiser) we had to put a piece of square tubing with holes drilled (big on top, small on bottom) for the old mounting locations and reversed holes for the seat rails (to get a nut inside the tube. Problem is that you will be raising the seat the thickness of the tube. We did it that way as it was faster (did 7 taliwagons) you may want to just add a stiffening plate and weld the nuts to it using a good stiff pattern material.

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Good suggestion...I'll investigate more[emoji106]

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X5chemist 09-29-2025 08:58 AM

My '83 C10 has the same mod. The bench seat is lifted 1.5" with Unistrut and longer bolts. It adds a little more leg room. I did it mostly to fit 2 - 12" woofers and a box behind the seat.

andrewwynn 09-29-2025 12:09 PM

You can use uni-strut.

Uni-strut has t-nuts designed to work with but won't be hardened I'd prob try to use thin uni-strut and hardened T-nuts.

You'll need to be creative to attach the back to the car but maybe just drill new holes though the rail farther forward and use the same bolt right through the uni strut.

Paint it black it'll look factory. It will raise the seat 3/4" or so, so hopefully your eye height is low enough to deal with that.

When i bought my e53 one of the seat bolts was not bolted in completly and the moving part of the rail hit the bolt head going past so I'm pretty confident that rear bolt hole can be moved forward.

Put the uni-strut open side down, use a short bolt and t-nut to hold the front down and use the factory bolt if long enough to hold the uni-strut to the floor.

Dry fit to determine how far back you can go with the limit of wire length. Raise the seat fully and set on a couple 1x2 to account for the height of the uni-strut.

Should be an afternoon job. Good luck report back.


–awr–

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getty150 09-30-2025 05:37 AM

Thanks for the replies!
What i can best comprehend is to find longer rails...question is,
is there any other BMW seat rails that are longer?

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andrewwynn 09-30-2025 06:49 PM

If there were, i would doubt it would be cross compatible. Somebody actually in the Buisness of 3rd party seats or junk yard might know though


–awr–

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getty150 10-01-2025 04:16 AM

Going to the boneyard...I'll inspect there. The 7 series the bigger car I figure therefore longer rails?
KYP.

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EODguy 10-02-2025 04:24 AM

I do want to warn you to make whatever setup you do super strong or in an accident the seat could break free.

I hit the steering column in that up-armor (no airbags) and broke my chicken plate and it was rated to withstand 10 rounds of .308 armor piercing ammo from 10' and 1" apart. (1 star, do NOT recommend)[emoji28]

My seat did NOT break free but I did see my house from there just before coming back down!

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andrewwynn 10-02-2025 06:54 AM

Rail extension?
 
+1

The unit strut solution: the metal is not hardened, so it will flex and stretch instead of break.

You can likely drill holes and bolt through the bottom steel plate on the bottom, T nut might be a big enough.


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