I was out at the junkyard this past weekend getting some parts for a beater I just bought. Anyways, I spotted a mid 90's model Pontiac Bonneville that looked like it hadn't been there too long. I've been keeping my eye out for a Bonneville seat to replace my very crappy and squeaky drivers seat in my bus. I used to have a Bonneville and it was a VERY comfortable car. Anyways, I opened the door and found a really nice new seat for my bus! It's in excellent shape. I pulled it and paid $10 for it. It's actually the passenger seat in the car. The drivers seat had the armrest that goes in the middle. If anybody is ever in the OKC area, go to Pull-A-Part. They have all sorts of stuff that would be awesome for use in a skoolie.
Anyways, I pulled my old seat which like the seats in the back of the bus, was bolted through the floor with nuts under the bus.
Only 4 bolts though. I got my wife to help me. After a bunch of whining from her and me having to show her 15 times how to use a ratchet, lefty loosey etc., we managed to get the seat out. I took the base off of the old seat so I could use it for my new seat!
I used some bed rails and cut them up with my metal cutting saw. This thing cuts through metal like a hot knife through butter. I measured the feet on the new seat and cut the bed rails up and welded them to my old seat base. The new seat was 3.5" taller so I had to make it to where the old base went up into the new seat base a bit. Kinda hard to explain. I also got my wife to cut a piece for me. In her bare feet no less!
After a few hours, I managed to get it all welded up. I was going to weld some bolts to the bed rails so I could bolt my seat to it, but I got lazy and just welded the seat to the rails. It's not coming off without some great difficulty!
It is SOOOOOO much more comfortable than my old seat. It doesn't squeak or wobble around either! It was a huge improvement for $10! Bonneville seats definitely make great skoolie drivers seats. I think I saw somebody else that used one too. Any Bonneville made after 1992 will have seats that look like mine. Someday, I'll look for one out of an SSEi model that has all of the electronic controls with it! They're pretty sweet. Anyways, here's mine all finished.