Fit E88 1 series seats into a 2002

[Mike Rowe]

9 hours ago, Ken said:

The steering wheel is a e21 sport wheel from Dave at

BMW 2002 Parts

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thanks Ken, suits the interior very well.  Thanks also for the photo of your seat frame - looks very neat.  Why the captive bolt on one side only?

[Ken]

1 hour ago, Mike Rowe said:

thanks Ken, suits the interior very well.  Thanks also for the photo of your seat frame - looks very neat.  Why the captive bolt on one side only?

The front has the captive bolts on both sides due to the seat rails sit flat on the 1/4" steel they could have been on the back but I don't remember why I didn't.

[Mike Rowe]

No worries Ken, thought I only saw one, and thought you may have had it on one side to align.  Doesn't matter, just interested.

[Mike Rowe]

On 6/11/2024 at 12:16 AM, HobieDog said:

Not those seats, but I put later model seats into mine (~2015 2-series sport seats).  

As Mike pointed out, you'll need to lunch the factory seat rails and make something else to get the seats lower.  The other thing I had to do was modify the transmission tunnel.  I didnt't want to, but I couldn't get the seats low enough and centered behind the steering wheel to my liking.

Go as low as possible, as I suspect your replacement seats probably have a height adjustment like mine.  I stacked some wood blocks on the floor pans to figure out exactly where I wanted them.  

Here's a photo of my fronts and the mount from when I installed them. 

 

The back seat bottom fit in with a little cutting and bending of the seat frame.  The back seat back cushions took quite a bit of work and are still a work in progress.  I had to section the seat back frames down by a few inches.  Also, I wanted to keep the fold-down functionality (60/40) of the seats and so fabricating the hinge mounts in a way that makes for painless back seat removal took a little bit of trial-and-error work.  Still need to figure out the upper latch, but that should be easy.   

I love having these seats in the car.

 

 

Edit - here’s a pic of the backseats the last time I had them in for a fit check. Note that I haven’t yet re-sewn the back cushion covers so they appear a bit floppy.  Prepare for some fabrication hours on those if the 1 series back seat is also too tall and needs to be trimmed down. 

Hi HD, I have just started playing with the rear seat to see whether it will fit. 

The seat base almost fits straight in but at a slight angle.  Like you I may have to trim something to let it go in straight and sit back as far as required. Did you trim off the rear sides of your seat base to get it to sit in properly?

 

The seat back though is certainly too high, so will need to trim off the bottom, don't know how?

The width of the seat back though is much narrower than the standard 2002 seat back - did you find this with your seat?

Also does your seat back bottom edge, fit behind the seat base or just on top of it?

regards

Mike