automotive trend center: Rear Seat Delete

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Rear Seat Delete

After taking my back seat out, which I might add is really simple to do, only five bolts. I was left with a big gap where the seats used to be. One of my friends suggest a rear seat delete, I checked online and the only one for the Camaro cost $250 before shipping! There was no way I was going to pay that much. So after about a week of trying to figure out what I was going to do, my buddy suggested we make a rear seat delete our self. I was very hesitant at first, especially since our only cutting tool at my house was dremel! However, being a college student with a lot of time on my hands I figured why not, so with that my friend and I set out for materials.

We took VERY rough measurements for the bottom and back part of the rear seat delete. 21x47 and 20.5x46, with these dimensions we set out for Home Depot and bought a large sheet of wood about a quarter inch thick. Once we got back we traced out the design onto the wood and cut it out. After several test fittings, cutting and sanding we finally were able to get the sizes right. For the back panel we made one hole on each side near the bottom and used similar bolts (same diameter but longer) as the ones used to hold the OEM seat into the car. For the bottom part of the seat we used four bolts I had laying around to clip into the bottom of the car. I called a local fabric / foam store and they had told me they had carpet that a lot of automotive companies use. I made my trip down and found a color that was nearly exact to my carpet / floor mats. Once I got home my friend and I traced out the carpet to a size we liked and used an industrial strength spray adhesive that the fabric shop had to attach the carpet to the board. The finished product, in my opinion looks amazing. I am still surprised how closely I was able to match the OEM carpet. One thing to note is the U shape inlet we had to make on the bottom portion because the battery cable the comes from the trunk to the front of the car is fed right under the seat. If you don't make the cut for this the bottom will not lay flat.

Anyone that doesn't use their rear seats (and who really does?) and is looking for a unique look, I suggest trying this. It is easy to make and I only spent about $75 on the entire project, which is much cheaper than the "professional" version. However, let me warn you and make sure for the bottom part you attach the carpet to the correct side. Since the U cut is off centered it won't work if you mess up and we know because we messed up and had to re-do the bottom....