Charles Durning's Journal --
DIY Adjustable MGB Seats Editoret Donna now has her own MGB. Since she is 5’ tall and I’m 6”1” there is a need for the driver’s seat to be adjustable. The MGB sliders are just not up to the task. The seat is difficult to move and the range is too short to accommodate both of us. I figured there must be a solution. In a quest for better sliders I went to my favorite parts source for inspiration, Pull-A-Part. In doing some digging around I found that early production PT Cruiser sliders just might fill the bill. (The later production sliders won’t work.) It only took a few minutes to remove the sliders. What’s good about the PT Cruiser sliders is they have ball bearings so they slide smooth and they are compact. Once home, the riveted on seat mount brackets had to be removed. What is left is a nice clean top and bottom. That makes mounting to the seat frame easy. In this case I used the front hole in the seat frame and then used the slider to locate and drill the back hole in the seat frame. The MGB seat is narrower than the PT Cruiser seat so the adjuster handle had to be narrowed. The hardest part of the entire conversion is getting the seat mounted to the floor. Though it is tempting to just drill new holes in the floor, a simple bracket can be made so the original MGB seat mount holes can be utilized. Using a piece of ¼” x 1.25’ wide steel or aluminum flat stock drill 2 holes to mount the flat stock to the floor. The holes for the new sliders need to be about 3 inches forward of the originals and about ¼ inch narrower than the original holes. Bolt it all up and you’re done. As a final note, since I did this conversion I stumbled upon some NRG sliders that look surprisingly like the PT Cruiser sliders and may be easier to adapt. The process will be the same. I realize this is not for everyone but it is a solution to our situation and the seat slides smooth as glass. The purists will never know.
Posted 2019-08-21 05:27:41 by charles durning
DIY Adjustable MGB Seats Editoret Donna now has her own MGB. Since she is 5’ tall and I’m 6”1” there is a need for the driver’s seat to be adjustable. The MGB sliders are just not up to the task. The seat is difficult to move and the range is too short to accommodate both of us. I figured there must be a solution. In a quest for better sliders I went to my favorite parts source for inspiration, Pull-A-Part. In doing some digging around I found that early production PT Cruiser sliders just might fill the bill. (The later production sliders won’t work.) It only took a few minutes to remove the sliders. What’s good about the PT Cruiser sliders is they have ball bearings so they slide smooth and they are compact. Once home, the riveted on seat mount brackets had to be removed. What is left is a nice clean top and bottom. That makes mounting to the seat frame easy. In this case I used the front hole in the seat frame and then used the slider to locate and drill the back hole in the seat frame. The MGB seat is narrower than the PT Cruiser seat so the adjuster handle had to be narrowed. The hardest part of the entire conversion is getting the seat mounted to the floor. Though it is tempting to just drill new holes in the floor, a simple bracket can be made so the original MGB seat mount holes can be utilized. Using a piece of ¼” x 1.25’ wide steel or aluminum flat stock drill 2 holes to mount the flat stock to the floor. The holes for the new sliders need to be about 3 inches forward of the originals and about ¼ inch narrower than the original holes. Bolt it all up and you’re done. As a final note, since I did this conversion I stumbled upon some NRG sliders that look surprisingly like the PT Cruiser sliders and may be easier to adapt. The process will be the same. I realize this is not for everyone but it is a solution to our situation and the seat slides smooth as glass. The purists will never know.
| Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.  <compare> | Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.  <Handle cut and splice> | Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.  <mounted to the seat> |
| Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.  <mounted> | Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.  <rivets drilled out> | Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.  <as removed from the car> |
Posted 2019-08-21 05:27:41 by charles durning
