M5 Seats in E9?

andyleonard

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The seats for my 73 will be in restoration for quite a while. Will late-model M5 seats fit...temporarily? Anyone done it? Seats and car are in different locations or I'd answer my own question. Thanks.
 

craterface

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Don't know if they will fit, and they will be heavy.

Corbeau makes an inexpensive vintage looking seat. Or borrow a seat from someone. There has to be a beat up e9 seat in socal lying around.

 

rsporsche

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not sure that new style seats will fit as most of them have adjustable bases which are taller ... the e9 has raised bases as part of the car. and @craterface is correct, they are very heavy. i would try to borrow a seat from somebody in socal ... especially if somebody is repainting their car and has the seats out for a while.
 

andyleonard

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not sure that new style seats will fit as most of them have adjustable bases which are taller ... the e9 has raised bases as part of the car. and @craterface is correct, they are very heavy. i would try to borrow a seat from somebody in socal ... especially if somebody is repainting their car and has the seats out for a while.

Just for grins I weighed a stock E9 seat yesterday (missing a lot of horsehair and leather) and the cheesy bathroom scale said almost 60#s. I'm not sure what a "heavy" seat is if the stockers are at 60#s. My race seat weighs 29#s.

Yes, I understand about E9 seat heights/bases...I'm 6'4"... and this particular car has an aftermarket sunroof that eats maybe an inch of headroom. Problemo.

I put a nice set of M5 seats in my E23 turbo (which of course is wider than an E9) and they were great compared to the original collapsed couches. And smaller and *much* lower. Solved the headroom issue in that car nicely.

Has anyone tried an M5 seat in an E9?

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Bmachine

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not sure that new style seats will fit as most of them have adjustable bases which are taller ... the e9 has raised bases as part of the car.
As Scott (edit: I originally wrote Gary... Ooops, my apologies) said most of the 80’s and newer Bmw seats have completely different mounting position and philosophy. While it is possible to “make them work” in the e9, if it is for a temporary assignment, it is definitely not worth the time and re engineering required.
 
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andyleonard

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Got that. I'm not being clear on the fact that the combination of my height and the lowering of the roof inside from the aftermarket sunroof brings into question whether the original seats (and perches) can be used under any circumstances if I am to enjoy the car. This has been a problem with every coupe I have owned since 1973 and I have never solved it. Closest I've gotten was to use a blown-out seat with a good cover. And now I have the **** sunroof to deal with too.

These seats were in the worst condition upholstery-wise I have ever seen in a BMW. I removed all the horsehair, foam and pigskin from the bottom cushion yesterday in 10 mins barehanded. No tools. Springs are just fine. Hmmm. So as a science experiment I tie-wired the center springs down as far as I could to lower my bum and sat on a piece of carpet over the bare springs and drove around for a while. Headroom was fine...but there's not a lot of room for padding and I'm afraid if I do a proper job of reupholstering the seats to stock, I won't fit. And If I upholster it the way it is now it'll look stupid, so it looks like trimming or removing and saving the perches might be the way to go.

I tried fitting a manual E36 seat I have in the barn and - even lowered all the way - it's an inch higher than the stock one. And it only weighs 5#s more than the CS seat, even with all the gizmos underneath. So back to fitting the M5 seats without ruining the car for the future (4 sons.)

Has anyone successfully fitted better seats by trimming/removing the seat perches (and saving them for reinstallation later)? How did you choose to do it? I guess that should have been the question in the original post. "Temporarily" was misleading. Sorry.
 

HB Chris

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Andy, I am 6'5" with no sunroof but I raised the front of the seats 3/8" or so using drill bushings/shims between seat and seat rail and used longer M6 bolts, this gives more support for my 36" inseam legs. Made a big difference for me.
 

andyleonard

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Andy, I am 6'5" with no sunroof but I raised the front of the seats 3/8" or so using drill bushings/shims between seat and seat rail and used longer M6 bolts, this gives more support for my 36" inseam legs. Made a big difference for me.

Trade you for the "no sunroof."
 

Gransin

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My head was irritatingly close to the headliner in my non-sunroof coupe with the original seats.
This was fixed by putting in a pair of scheel 400 seats.
 
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