For those of you following at home the continuing saga of installing Miata
seats into my
79 spit, I've finally finished. Initially I had put 'em in and hated them,
at the suggestion of
a lister, I had cut the seat foam down which made them tolerable. Finally
at the
suggestion of Paul Tegler, I cut a chunk of metal out of the seat pan - I
also had to
put a spacer under the back seat rail mounting point. The seat will now
slide back
all the way until it hits the "parcel shelf".
What a difference! I can now honestly say that I am completely (well,
almost) satisfied
with the mod and would recommend it to even us taller folks, assuming that
you're willing
to invest considerable time in modding the seats (i probably spent over 20
hours on the
project, partially because a screw stripped and had to be drilled out and
retapped but
mostly because of the learning curve.)
One downside is that the seat back mounting is now weakened from the loss of
metal
and I've reduced the safety margin in an accident. I'm guessing, however,
that it's
still more robust than the original equipment seats.
I do still sit a little too high and the angle of the seat bottom is a
little too steep. I'm a little
too close to the wheel and too far from the pedals (my leg is completely
straight when the
clutch is depressed). But the comfort of the seat more than makes up for it
and the original
Triumph seats were hardly ideal either.
Thanks to all of you who gave me advice and direction - I wished I had saved
the emails
so I could thank you individually, but please accept my blanket thanks
instead.
Best!
Greg Rowe
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