2nd Row Recliners

[ben322]

In the search for decent recliners, I found out that the new Toyota Sienna has put really nice ones in the second row. Getting them to fit was a little challenging as the first assumption was that the seat pedestals might have captive nuts which they don't so to change pedestal height, (I bought two 3" pedestals to replace the 7" ones), I would have to drop the fuel tank at the very least. Since I had made four U-Channel brackets out of 3/8" steel to clear the chair mechanism, this was going to be a problem. The other problem is that using any pedestal shorter than 7" in the original position will not allow the RH seat to swivel at all and the LH seat will be limited.

I apologize for not having step by step pictures but there was a lot of frustration because I was already committed to the recliners, (new take outs from a van conversion company), and had to rethink my strategy. Using my brackets and attaching the front/back adjustment slides in their original position made the seats high enough such that my feet were seven inches from the floor.

What I came up with was removing much of the factory Toyota attachment mechanism and reversing my brackets so they tuck up into the seat and removing the front/back slide gave me the desired height and I also canted slightly the brackets so I could have a little forward tilt to compensate for the higher front cushion position I didn't like that Toyota built in. I used all M8 10.9 hardware with locknuts.

The nice thing is that I can put the original chairs back in about an hour.

[ben322]

What it looks like under the seat.

[wayneskid]

Looks nice Ben. How'd you like to meet me in Oregon sometime and help me do mine?

[ben322]

Wayne, If I'm there, I'd be happy to!

The other nice thing is that with the original pedestals, I can still rotate the chairs and now I have a 3-point belts in the second row.

[russ240]

Originally Posted by ben322

now I have a 3-point belts in the second row.

You also have the Toyota LATCH point anchors for a baby seat, which is part of the reason I bought a pair of those same seats off of ebay about six months ago, but I have not gotten around to tackling the project yet. Congrats on getting yours in. They look great! I was worried that I would need to have an upholstery shop make some skirts to go around the bottom of the seat to conceal the hardware but after seeing yours I don't think that will be an issue.

Can you point out your brackets on the pic you took of the underside? My seats are in storage so I can't look at them right now for reference but my idea was to remove the Toyota mechanism and make a bracket out of a piece of 1/4" steel L channel that would bolt to the bottom of the seat where the factory Toyota clamping mounts were (it clamps to rails in the floor of the Sienna) and bolts to the existing pedastal base in the Interstate.

Am I understanding correctly that you eliminated the fore aft sliders on the Interstate pedastal but kept the pivots?

Thanks for the inspiration to finish my project!

[ben322]

Russ, my original plan was to use the factory Toyota mounting but if you mount the seats anywhere close to the top of the factory brackets, the seating position is much too high which is why I purchased the 3" pedestals and figured I would forfeit the swivel feature. The need to drop the fuel tank made me think of something different so since I was not going to use the Toyota mounts I decided to remove the mounts and cut the rear bracket and the center bar so the swivel bracket will fit up into the seat with the seat belt bar directly behind. The seats design accommodates this quite well.

Since I already made brackets to fit, (U-Channel facing up), I reversed the channel brackets to face down so the pedestal mounting points would be up inside the structure do the seats near the cushion. Since I removed the bar and thinking that the original mounting points provide the other side of the box strenghting the seat, having 2 brackets connected at 8 points seems logical.

The nice thing about this setup is the swivel portion still functions but I now have no front to back adjustment which is not really a problem. I still retain the original pedestals so going back is no problem.

The picture below shows the brackets tucked up into the seat. I also have the rear bracket almost 3/4" higher than the front so the factory cant is less pronounced. Sit in the chairs on the floor and you'll know what I mean. You can still use the front/back slides but that will add almost 1.5" to the height and where I have it now, my wife's feet are close but still don't touch the floor, (they don't touch the floor in the front passenger seat either so I'm good on height now).