So I was going to use actual car seats on my cabs but...

[shaolindrunkard]

So here's my story, I have been wanting to build a twin driving set up for years. A few years back I even bought a couple VW jetta seats off Craigslist for like 50 bucks. I had always planned on building something from scratch (someday) and then I got super lucky. I found 2 Offroad Challenge cabs for 100 bucks for the pair. Now I'm starting the project... Went to take a look at the car seats tonight and they are simply too tall as is, your knees would hit the steering wheel if I tried to put them on the cab, its not so much the seats them selves but all the mechanical junk under the seat, and as far as I can tell there is no way to take any of it off, its all part of the seat itself riveted and welded and what not. I was hoping the seat itself was just bolted to all the metal underneath but no dice.

Anyway, I'm trying not to break the bank on this build so I'm not sure if there is anything I can do to make the scratched to hell plastic seats look nicer or if I should just go ahead and get a pair of racing seats at some point. I actually don't mind the plastic seats but I would like to make them look nicer.

Just though I'd share.

[Howard_Casto]

Your problem was getting VW parts..... American seats are easier to work with.  You can still take all the junk off the bottom though.... an angle grinder and a cut-off wheel shouldn't cost you more than 30 bucks. 

You can polish plastic/fiberglass but it's a very involved process.... you find sandpaper rough enough to make scratches as deep as the deepest scratch.... sand the whole thing, switch to a finer paper... rinse and repeat until you get to a very fine level at which point to switch over to polishing pads.  If the scratches are minor there is a product called "plasticX" which works pretty well... it's meant to polish headlights. 

[buttersoft]

I just used a hacksaw - even cheaper. I still wanted the mechanisms on mine though, so they slide around, but they did need some trimming. I'm surprised you can't free them completely though. You have to be able to get the covers off to clean them, with pliers or something to release the heavy wire clips most times. And to do that you normally have to be able to get right under the seats.

[shaolindrunkard]

Your problem was getting VW parts..... American seats are easier to work with.  You can still take all the junk off the bottom though.... an angle grinder and a cut-off wheel shouldn't cost you more than 30 bucks. 

You can polish plastic/fiberglass but it's a very involved process.... you find sandpaper rough enough to make scratches as deep as the deepest scratch.... sand the whole thing, switch to a finer paper... rinse and repeat until you get to a very fine level at which point to switch over to polishing pads.  If the scratches are minor there is a product called "plasticX" which works pretty well... it's meant to polish headlights.

Yeah, I'm aware of how to polish plastic and what not but this is heavily textured plastic so that technique wont work unless i wanted to remove the texture. Well maybe I'll take another look, it really doesn't look like there would be any way to cut everything off and have it be even though... It may just be the way these particular seats were designed, thanks though.

[shaolindrunkard]

I just used a hacksaw - even cheaper. I still wanted the mechanisms on mine though, so they slide around, but they did need some trimming. I'm surprised you can't free them completely though. You have to be able to get the covers off to clean them, with pliers or something to release the heavy wire clips most times. And to do that you normally have to be able to get right under the seats.

Yeah maybe I'll take a second look, but it really doesn't look like its possible...Thanks

[Howard_Casto]

Well the rail mounts on seats are seldom even.  That's what wood blocks and shims are for. 

[BadMouth]

The way that cab is designed, there's not much to the back part the seat bolts to.
I'd just rebuild that section from scratch to fit the VW seats.

The plastic seats are ok for playing an arcade game for 10 minutes, but suck after playing a PC game for a couple hours.
The bottom of those plastic seats isn't very thick.  I think racing seats would still put you up too high.

[shaolindrunkard]

Yeah, I'm going to keep the cab as original as possible, thanks for the suggestion though. I don't think the plastic seats are all that bad, I think I'll hold onto them and then see about getting some racing seats someday... maybe I can find a deal on craigslist. There is actually room for a racing seat since they sit flat and the seat that is on there is fairly think. I might even buy some of those cheap plastic racing seats like the kind they used on the Cruis'n USA machines.

Thanks

[ant2]

Plastic seats hurt your arse bad. As badmouth said above, try playing a few championships on grid for an hour or two before doing away with the idea

I had to hacksaw and smash off some of the mechanisms on my seats for them to fit.
I had the knee issue on my mario kart cabinet, ended up having to move wheel higher and further away. Was really annoying as i only noticed once i did a wheel and seat test fit

I saw a guy who put cushions on the plastic seats and covered the whole seat, looked quite good. Might be an option and saves sanding back plastic.

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah GM sells these really nice pleather seat covers.... put some memory foam on the plastic seat then strap one of those on and it should look pretty good.

[shaolindrunkard]

Yeah the more I think about it the more I may just save up for some racing seats. Cheaping out never helped anybody. The universal ones are actually pretty low so I don't think they would cause any issue with knees hitting the steering wheel... But if I finish the rest of the cab before that I might just go for that memory foam idea...