A tall guy trying to make a JL work

[boomchke]

Hi Folks. I've read all the threads here and other places about the issues with tall people and the new JL. I had a 95 YJ when I was younger and have been patiently waiting to buy another Wrangler. I'm 6' 9" and am used to making myself "fit" in cars so a lot of the the things that bother other drivers don't typically bother me. Im used to my knees hitting the sides and not having space for stretching out my legs - but I was worried about the head room in the new JL.

Today I went to test dive a JL sport and was instantly relieved to find that I "fit". There was enough leg room and driving it was about as good as I could hope for. Then when pulling back into the dealer lot my wife looked over from the passenger seat and asked me to fully lean my head back. When I did - it nailed the cross bar (sport bar?) going between the two sides. I tried everything I could, made sure the seat was at it's lowest position, moved every possible seat option I could find, and there was nothing I could do that would take my head out of the way of the sport bar. I assure you - I tried everything and had 3 people from the dealer look at it too.

So that being said - I've been looking at options to get my head out of the way of the sport bar. Seems that lowering it isn't an option since at least part of the current bracket sits directly on the floor. Others have mentioned new seat rails which it sounds like in some cases actually slightly raise the seat but give you more leg room. The other option I see is people removing foam from the seat to make it sit lower.

As I see it - there are really 2 options here for me...

1 - Do something with the seat to lower it. This either means new seats that sit lower or something with the brackets to lower them. Has anyone had any success in doing this in any form? Some folks talk about aftermarket seats that are lower but I cant imagine buying a Jeep just in the hopes that I can find seats that make it lower for my head not to nail that bar.

2 - Move the sport bar. My initial thought was "Hey - why can't that just be moved?". I have friends who do metal fabrication and I thought to myself if it's welded there why cant I move it back a couple of inches. Then I realized that if I got a hard top that's probably not an option since I think it latches on there. But might it be if I had a soft top? This seems largely unrealistic to me but hey - Im desperate.

3 - Look at buying a JK but I am really hoping for a JL

Some of the other threads on this were older so I thought in desperation I'd try again.

Appreciate any input folks had on mods they did to lower the seats.

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[Arterius2]

3) Why would the JK be any different? If not smaller?

 

[boomchke]

Good question. Last year, a friend loaned me his JK while one of our cars was in the shop. I drove it for a week and I didn't have an issue with the bar but I do feel like the JL had more leg room than that JK did. One of the reasons Im hoping that I can make a JL work.

That being said - I do need to do and sit in a JK and make sure that the crossbar in fact is not an issue for me. It's been too long and I can't be certain that I just never leaned my head back far enough to hit it. So yeah - that's an assumption.

 

[multicam]

My initial gut reaction to your post was to go with number 2, moving the bar. But I came out to my garage and upon further inspection, it seems to me like that would be more work than trying to lower the seats. Moving that bar would probably turn into a hack job and a lot of the plastic molding would have to just go away. The soft top would have to be modified to mount differently, and with the moving pieces associated with it, it may actually be better to try to do this mod with the hard top.

I’m sorry I can’t offer more help than that; I’m lucky enough to not need any adjustments to my JL. But I would look to the seats if I were you. Maybe talk to some shops in the area, even ones focused on sports/racing cars because they may be able to modify seats.

Good luck and I hope you end up in a JL!

 

[Rudolph Hart]

2 I wouldn’t be messing with the bar, that would likely affect the rigidity of the body. I don’t think you want to go there.

 

[boomchke]

Thanks for the replies folks. My wife brought up a similar concern about moving the bar affecting the safety of the vehicle. So I think that leaves me with two options...

1 - Find a way to lower the stock seat
2 - Modify the current seat (remove foam?) or replace it with a seat that doesn't set as high

I've heard other folks say that the seat bracket sits right on the floor pan and indicating it would be hard to change or modify to lower. I can't imagine it's impossible, but I'm guessing it's just hard to do? Part of me likes the idea of lowering the seat by modifying the bracket so that I can keep the stock seats. Also - if I lower the stock seat I would maintain the feature of being able to raise the seat so if my wife or someone else drives it they can still get it back to a more "normal" height.

I wonder if any companies are working on seat lowering brackets. I should have taken pictures of the seat brackets when I was at the dealer so I could figure out if it's possible to lower them. Does anyone have pictures they could share of the brackets? I wont get back to a dealer again here for another week or so.

 

[Rudolph Hart]

Thanks for the replies folks. My wife brought up a similar concern about moving the bar affecting the safety of the vehicle. So I think that leaves me with two options...

1 - Find a way to lower the stock seat
2 - Modify the current seat (remove foam?) or replace it with a seat that doesn't set as high

I've heard other folks say that the seat bracket sits right on the floor pan and indicating it would be hard to change or modify to lower. I can't imagine it's impossible, but I'm guessing it's just hard to do? Part of me likes the idea of lowering the seat by modifying the bracket so that I can keep the stock seats. Also - if I lower the stock seat I would maintain the feature of being able to raise the seat so if my wife or someone else drives it they can still get it back to a more "normal" height.

I wonder if any companies are working on seat lowering brackets. I should have taken pictures of the seat brackets when I was at the dealer so I could figure out if it's possible to lower them. Does anyone have pictures they could share of the brackets? I wont get back to a dealer again here for another week or so.

I tried taking some pics on my phone for you but it’s too dark down there to get decent images.

There are 3 brackets/legs under the seat that could reasonably be remade to be shorter but the front right hand corner, as you already discovered, sits on top of the transmission tunnel (no bracket) you wouldn’t easily make this corner lower.

You might be able to remove some of the padding underneath the seat but I’m not sure you would gain much in depth....there are some metal cross members under there and the heated seat elements/wiring etc.

I think realistically, you would need to look at replacing the seats but even then you have the problem with the transmission tunnel. I wish you good luck.

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