The Rover-Landers of BC

I'm looking for some input on replacement seats for a 1987 Land Rover Defender. Wondering if anyone has done some research on which seats would fit nice and be compatible with the Land Rover Defender. I don't mind doing some fabrication and I'm not looking for Land Rover specific seats. Any Ideas?

You need to find some that are quite low and full manual.

I have some ideas but only one that I have experience with.

I manhandled some VW mk 4 seats in. I don't recommend them. They are super comfy now and wired for the seat heaters, but there was a lot to modify to get them low enough.

Honda Prelude seats would be pretty good as they are quite low, but that car is quite old and might be tough to find a decent pair.
BMW e36 seats are also pretty low and some were full manual.
FC or FD RX7 would probably be good as well.
RX8 seats look a bit goofy but they would probably work well and there are a lot of them in junkyards as that last rotary was garbage.

That's all I can think of right now. I'd go to an import wrecker and look for any good pair that are comfy and sit really low between the butt and the seat rail. The rover rails are pretty easy to adapt to.

Getting to the battery is always the issue.

Yep. The battery is an issue. I can get to it by removing two nuts in about 3 minutes.

The seats from a smartfor2 car are the right sort of size. I got used leather ones fairly inexpensively for my land rover series.

I'll see what I can find for 'low' seats! I would love to be able to seat 'three' across, but that's probably tough with buckets. Has anyone put a bench seat in????
Ryan

You can also just retrim the stock ones. Re-trim kits are around $100. IMO, they are quite comfortable. Defender seat come standard with three across. In one of my trucks, I used a Series "deluxe" centre seat (they are quite cheap new) and mounted it on some old series sliders that I narrowed to fit the center seat.

My Land Rover came with an unknown set of seats that aren't stock. They're reasonably comfortable but are pretty beat up.

ryancr500 wrote:My Land Rover came with an unknown set of seats that aren't stock. They're reasonably comfortable but are pretty beat up.

Used stock seats are usually not hard to find as the guys that spend a ton restoring their trucks buy expensive aftermarket seats.

I think having some newer defender seats is the best option out there for me. I just tried to wedge some mazda miata seats in... even they're too big.
Does anyone have any extra seats laying around???? Please contract me
Ryan

I’m thinking that recovering my existing seats may be the best. They look like they still have the original bases but need new backs.
Most importantly is that I need to source a middle seat that fits in the defender! Does anyone out there know where I could get a reasonably priced center seat?
Ryan

I had great luck with the rear seat out of a Volvo Xc70/V70/S60/S80. They are Volvo seats so they are umbrlieveably comfortable as well as you can find heated ones ;-)

The only issue is you will be stuck with a bench seat. I will add a few pics in a day or so.

Jordan

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Send me some pics!

The fronts are from an S60 and the rear are from a V70 or xc70.

I think I paid $150 for the fronts and $200 for the rears?//uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201810 ... a1fa45.jpg//uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201810 ... 3ae04b.jpg//uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201810 ... 052db7.jpg//uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201810 ... 712552.jpg//uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201810 ... 2654e7.jpg//uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201810 ... 8ed5a6.jpg

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Except that is a series. You don’t need to get under the seat to access the battery regularly.

D2 seats fit nice and snug in a 2A

terayon wrote: Wed Oct 17, 2018 6:51 pm The fronts are from an S60 and the rear are from a V70 or xc70.

I think I paid $150 for the fronts and $200 for the rears?//uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201810 ... a1fa45.jpg//uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201810 ... 3ae04b.jpg//uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201810 ... 052db7.jpg//uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201810 ... 712552.jpg//uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201810 ... 2654e7.jpg//uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201810 ... 8ed5a6.jpg

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The Volvo seats look pretty nice in there!!

I put Disco 1 seats in my series 109. did a little bit of kludging to get the front ones to fit in the 'tray' that the series seat bottoms fit into. Things are a bit tight for my legs under the steering wheel but I plan on getting a smaller steering wheel.

The rears fit ok with a bit of mucking about but I set them just a bit higher and further back than stock and I like the way they feel

You may find front seats out of a Subaru impreza or older /outback/legacy to fit. Better still if they are aftermarket, which many past owners fitted, aftermarket seats were standard on the WRX STi, I think.