I had also been contemplating the seats for some time, although I like the style of the stock seats (including the funky little side handles for the back seat passendgers to use to hold on!). But the seat back does not provide enough lumbar support, and the butt and thigh area could be shaped better for long drives. I was thinking about rebuilding the seats with better lower back and thigh support, maybe even recover them in leather, but that is a lot of work. So instead I had been looking around for some leather seats that are more comfortable but I have not found any in good shape at the wrecking yard. Then recently I came across some MR2 seats that were almost the correct color and have a much better shape (pictured below). They are overall similar in size, about an inch narrower, with excellent back and lateral support. I had to cold form the mounts a bit so they would fit, and redrill several of the mounting holes, but it was an easy adaptation. No more picnic blanket look! Now to do something about the back seats, my kids hate them-uncomfortable!
View of the back of the seats below, not a bad fit. But the back seat passangers loose the side handles from the front seats (not that I remember ever seeing anyone use them).
Below are the front mounts, you can see I had to drill new holes outboard of the original ones. The right mount needed a little reshaping too (same is true for the passanger seat but it was the left one). I cold formed it with a hammer and heavy steel rod I used as an anvil. But the MR2 rails and mounts were close enough to make use of the Tercel mounting points. An important safety issue.
Below is the worst fit of the rear mount, I had to drill a new hole (well, two holes actually, somehow I missed the first one) further back and use a half inch shim to raise it (I used a large hex bolt as a spacer). But it was still well within the margines of the metal mount. The right side (not pictured) bolted right to the mounting point without alteration. It does not have the little plastic covers over the rear mounting bolts like the stock seats
The MR2 does not have rear seats, just a presumed marginal storage area (about big enough for a thin note book), I guess they saw no reason to hide the mounting bolts. Strangly the MR2 seat does recline all the way back, even though it could not do this in the MR2 because of the rear fire wall. But it works in the Tercel.
Does anyone know if there is a way to get the whole picture to post properly? they get cut off when they display, these were all square pics showing more of the image.
