New seats won't fit in my 1991 911 C4?

[gwertzman]

I recently bought a 1991 911 C4, and the seats were ripped up. I just bought new 12-way power seats from ebay to replace them, and the seller assured me that they would fit my car -- i'm guessing they are from a newer car (993? 996?) since the seats are in near mint condition. I went to install them in my car today, and they don't quite fit because the seat belt bolt on the inside of the seats bumps into the tunnel. I measured, and the bolt on the inside seat belt sticks out about 1/4" - 1/2" farther than the bold on the original stock seats.

It appears like the bracket which these seat belts are attached to bends out a bit farther toward the inside than the bracked on the original seats, thus causing the clearance problem.

any suggestions on how I can modify these new seats so they will fit? I don't want to try bending the bracket on the new seats for fear of affecting the structural strength of the seat belt bracket. Can I move the bracket over from my old seat to the new seat?

[BoxxerSix]

Are the new seats Sport seats??? They're a tad wider if so.

Although I have not tried it on my Porsche seats, most other seats you can swap over the clasp brackets pretty easy. I did this when I swapped in a set of 2002 Toyota Celica seats into a friends Dodge. Just be sure to secure the bracket bolts in the seats with red loctite once you have them positioned correctly.

You may not be able to easily bend the bracket if you want to do to the type of steel utlized in those parts. It's pretty rigid stuff. however if it does bend you'll be ok to do so as long as you bend in one direction only(Ie if you bend to far don't try to bend it back). Bending metal in one direction a little bit is usually fine but back and forth can cause surface tension cracks and stress risers, both bad in a part that keeps you secured in the car.

If it's just the bolt that's hitting, you can try getting what's called a Button Head Allen cap bolt, either in a high grade 8.9 or 9.8 steel or stainless. They have a very low profile and are installed via a standard hex allen key.

[DustinTarditi]

I've seen a post on RL about a guy with aftermarket seats and it had the same problem... he shaved his bolt a bit and it fit - a better solution is to get a high quality low-profile fastener, though.