Rear bench swap

[Cartman]

Hi, guys, is it possible to swap rear bench? I have sport 2D bench and Im able to buy rear benches from 4d rubicon, where are 3 headrest and its possible to fold it in 2/3 also with or without armrest.

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[Ol’ Timey Manual SWB Guy]

Maybe? But the 2-door is a 4-passenger vehicle, whereas the 4-door is a 5-passenger vehicle.

 

[Cartman]

Maybe? But the 2-door is a 4-passenger vehicle, whereas the 4-door is a 5-passenger vehicle.

yes, but biggest adventage for me is the possiblity to fold down part of rear bench and have a bigger trunk.

 

[jeepingib]

Maybe, but it's not going to be just a bolt it in and go kinda thing. You will have to fabricate new mounts and make sure that they are strong enough to keep occupants secured in a crash. The fitment might be tricky as they don't sit in the same area between the wheel wells exactly.

 

[cansberry]

If you have a 2 door, a 4 door bench won't fit due to the bench being narrower because the wheel arches intrude in that space.

 

[Asuriyan]

If you have a 2 door, a 4 door bench won't fit due to the bench being narrower because the wheel arches intrude in that space.

This is the answer. 4-door benches are about 8in wider at the base because they go forward of the rear wells, whereas the 2-door seat needs to fit right between them.

 

[Cartman]

I thought the mounting points wouldn't fit, but the width is really limiting. Anyway, I'll measure it and look for an upgrade.

 

[The Last Cowboy]

Why do you want to do this? If you need to seat 5 passengers, then you need a 4 door.

 

[Cartman]

no no, I need only 3 seats and slightly bigger trunk. I do not like 4door siluete.

 

[OminousSkitter]

You're the second person in about a month I've seen ask about it for pretty much the exact same reason—they want to fold half the bench. Will you always need 3 seats? It might be possible to do something like @Tredsdert did and install a small seat in place of the bench. Unfortunately he has deleted all (most?) evidence of this, but there are a few references to it. If you go that route, I'd recommend bolting it to something more substantial than a horse stall mat. Also, I'm not sure what the rules in Slovakia are, like is a headrest required?

 

[Deleted User 38384]

You're the second person in about a month I've seen ask about it for pretty much the exact same reason—they want to fold half the bench. Will you always need 3 seats? It might be possible to do something like @Tredsdert did and install a small seat in place of the bench. Unfortunately he has deleted all (most?) evidence of this, but there are a few references to it. If you go that route, I'd recommend bolting it to something more substantial than a horse stall mat. Also, I'm not sure what the rules in Slovakia are, like is a headrest required?

@Cartman

One of these days I'm going to turn this thing into a workshop chair, until then I've just been storing it in the garage.

I believe the chair was like $50 on amazon. It is a fishing boat chair. Comes with the bolts although I ended up opting for longer ones because I wasn't in fact installing it on a horse stall mat that I was using as a cargo carpet in the back of my jeep.

I've since cut up the cargo horse stall mat after removing it from my Jeep and I'm not using it as a shop mat in front of my tool chest.

Here's the aluminum plate and the bolts I was using with washers and lock washers. The idea behind the aluminum plate was to spread out tension over a large surface. If you just had washers and bolts going through the horse stall mat into the seat, any sort of crazy movement in the Jeep could yank the bolts through the horse stall mat and the seat would fall out of place. With the aluminum sheet metal there, pressure is applied across a 12-in by 12 in surface, basically the seat ain't going anywhere unless the horse stall mat tears out with it. I don't know if you've ever picked up a horse stall mat before, but they are unwieldy, they do not tear easy (they're intended to hold a 1000 lb animal), and each mat weighs about 80 lb. So moving around is no easy feat. Especially because of how floppy it is!

The process was very simple. Drill some holes in the horse stall mat, that match the bolt holes in the boating seat, put a piece of aluminum sheet metal underneath the horse stall mat, and put the boat fishing seat on the other side of the horse stall mat, pass bolts through the aluminum sheet metal and the horse stall mat into the boating seat, and then strap the whole cargo mat with the folding seat attached to the normal tie-down points I was using in the jeep.

In my case I did not attach a seatbelt to it. If I ever improved the design to make it more safe and more DOT compliant, I might have installed a seatbelt, but really it was just something fun for me to do, and a good place to eat lunch, and/or a fun space to hang out in the back of the Jeep when I was at the park. I can't tell you how many sandwiches I ate in that seat over at Denison Dam.. it's a big number!

What it leaves you with is a really fun jumpseat that I would not recommend using while the vehicle is in motion outside of extremely short hops with people who are okay sitting in an extremely unsafe jump seat.

There might still be a photo around here somewhere of me jesting that my granddaughter sat in it while we drove around at highway speeds. But to this day no one has sat in the seat while the vehicle was in motion. I wanted to at one point, but my wife had a conniption. I mean on community roads, 15 mph max, for a quarter mile from our house to the pool. I personally don't see the issue with it, but I guess I grew up during a different time when people weren't so easily upset. People are built softer nowadays.

When I was growing up we would hop in the bed of the pickup truck while my uncle drove across town at 50 mph to pick up more beer for the pool party, probably a little tipsy, and his goal was to hit as many bumps along the way. Good times!

This is my current rear seat setup:

It is a 42-in Corbeau Baja Bench seat mounted on a custom DIY frame to the cargo area of my jeep. Behind it is currently sitting my spare tire in a spare tire mount designed for a truck bed which is also bolted into the cargo area. Is it all DOT compliant? Your guess is as good as mine! However it does function just like the factory seats, it even uses the factory seat belts. In an accident you would have the same issues you would in the factory seats. Only difference here is it's further back so instead of your rear passengers slamming the side of their head on the steel portion of the door frame and dying, now they might hit their head on the c-pillar crossbar.

I will be chopping out to c-pillar crossbar sometime this year. And will be relocating it further up and back.

@Cartman your best bet if you want only three seats in the jeep, is to purchase a rear seat mount from and aftermarket company, there are a few around, and then purchase a PRP bucket seat, just one. Install it in that at which point you can still use your factory rear seat belt on that side only. You should be good with that.

I can't think of the name of the company who has the rear seat Mount that I was thinking about purchasing initially, but it should take a very simple Google search to find a multitude of options for yourself.

If you put a four-door bench seat in a two-door Jeep rear seat area, you won't get the same functionality because it's a completely differently designed seat. You might get some level of 2/3 fold down, but it ain't going to be nearly as good as your factory two door seats in the rear. Like I said in the paragraph above, your best bet is going to be a standalone seat from someone like PRP and then put something on the other 2/3 side to make it flat. There are tons of options there between goosegear and DIY builds.

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