Moving seat to increase driver leg room

A few days ago there was a post about Tall driver comfort tips. I posted how I moved my driver's seat to create a few more inches of leg room. It seems there was some interest so I decide to post a detailed description of the work with a few more photos. Here it is.

Shortly after I got my 2A I realized that I would need more leg room as well as room between the steering wheel. I read all of the posts I could find that talked about moving the seat back. The usual way was to cut out the wheel house and lengthen the lower seat frame rails to move the seat back a few inches. Because my jeep had just had the tub rhino lined I was hesitant to start hacking on the wheel house. After looking and measuring I decided to cut a section out of the lower left seat back to allow the seat to move back over the wheel house. I removed the seat cushions then measured the section I wanted to cut out. I then removed the seat frame and bolted it on a piece of plywood so that the feet would remain in alignment with the original mounting bolts. The next step was to cut the lower rail and tack in a 3” piece to make the rails longer. Then I cut the square section out of the seat back using a sawsall and framed the cutout area with 1” flat bar. With everything tacked up I set the frame back in place to make sure it bolted up correctly. My goal was to avoid drilling any new holes in the tub. I took the frame back out, welded it up and painted it. When I bolted the frame back in the cutout section set directly over the wheel house. I put a 1” block of hardwood between the frame and the top of the wheel house as a spacer. When I put the cushions back on, the lower left section of the back cushion was directly up against the front of the wheel house.    

Great post, thanks for sharing.  What kind of tubing did you use to extend the seat frame? 

srlbotanical wrote: I'm 6'4" and this looks like a great option to me.  Thanks for the detailed post. I think I'm going to give this a try. Steve

It's a quick solution to gain 3" of space as opposed to cutting the wheel house. Don't know if that's enough for your height. You might be able cut the left lower corner of the seat cushion out and move back even further.

Seat modification is genius.

Stev wrote: Seat modification is genius. What did you wrap the gas tank in?  Looks like rubber of some sort.

When I first got the jeep as the speed increased up to around 25 to 30 mph I would get a vibration (almost a humming noise) from the gas tank. I put a sheet of 3/16 rubber over it to dampen the noise.

Yes.  The connection is hot, too.  You need to insulate the nut-and-stud from anything that might fall on it and ground that connection to the sending unit flange.  That seat belt buckle, for instance.  It might be able to fall down onto the connection maybe, or you might drop a wrench there.  Lots of things could happen.  If you happened to have a leak at the flange, imagine how bad it could be...

There might have been a rubber cap for it once; I don't have one either and I'd like to.