seat compatibility

[Mr Nelson]

So I have gone to 3 junkyards with no such luck on finding a driver seat, My explorer has the sport cloth seats and I was wondering if I can move the cloth portions to a leather seat. unfortunately some fat **** owned this explorer and broke the the seat frame and track in many spots.

 

[koda2000]

The seats and parts (cloth or leather) are interchangeable from 95-01 and I understand that some of the gen III seats will also bolt in. There are some differences in seat belt fastener parts, but you can swap them from you old seat. Another difference you may run into is the seat-side air bags. Most gen II's I've encountered don't have the seat-side air bags (I think it was an option) and in there place there is a resistor that simulates the presence of the air bag. Without the air bag, or resistor, you'll get air-bag codes 36 & 37.

 

[974X4BLACKSPORT]

WHen it comes to finding parts for old cars, you just have to be patient and keep looking, the more junk yards the better. I used to restore rare old cars, and when looking for a specific part, or group of parts, you have to look in all the common places, and also in the not so common places, back then I didn't have the internet (1990's), but patience and perseverance pay off. I even purchased entire cars just for a couple rare parts. Just keep looking. There are lots of internet junk yards also!

 

[CDW6212R]

Ditto, you have to be patient and be a little lucky, good used parts do turn up.

BTW, the passenger seat can be used for parts for a left seat, I've read that before here a few times. So try to find at least one nice seat to work on. Take it apart and see how it differs from yours. The seat tracks swap from 1992 to 2001 for sure, as said some 2002 to 05 can be used also. The seats all use the same four bolt holes, left/right and all years.

Power seat tracks sit up higher than manual tracks, the lowest setting is higher than manual tracks are at. I've got perfect 91 XLT seats in my old 91, soon to be gone, they sit very low.

 

[koda2000]

I think you'll likely pretty much all 20 year old and + driver's side seat bottom frames will have disconnected coil springs and possibly several broken cushion support springs. This just happens due to metal fatigue (fat *****'s not withstanding). Go with the newest/least mileage seats you can find and as said the passenger side bottom seat frame can be used on the driver's seat and usually has had less people sitting o them.

 

[masospaghetti]

I've been lucky and been able to find a few sets of decent seats at the junkyard over the years (both cloth and leather). Koda is right, the seat springs have all degraded to various extents. This can be relatively easy to fix depending on how bad it is, usually some of them can be put back together, and something to line the bottom of the cushion to support it also helps. Duct tape actually works pretty well, as cheesy as it sounds.

The base cloth seats (the non-powered ones) have cushions that can be easily swapped from passenger side to driver and the covers are just velcro'd on, no hog rings or anything.

 

[Mr Nelson]

Hi I really appreciate the help guys, I will try and attach a couple of pics of my seat frame and material. I found a 96 at another junkyard powerseat like mine but leather, I want to know if I can just move my seat top to the leather seat and put my seat bottom on the leather seat as it looks very similar and same year. so basically cloth fabric swapped to a leather seat if it is possible.

 

[CDW6212R]

If you've already figured out how the seats come apart, you should be able to rebuild one seat very well, as you described.