Transit front passenger seat

[Wcoats]

Looking to swap double seat on my 2015 transit custom to a single seat. Any companies in Scotland that will supply and fit a single seat. Would you recommend using non standard single seat as captains chair?

[NickJ]

I was thinking about doing this but you can get a double seat swivel for the passenger seat on ebay. Its about £250 though

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[Wcoats]

I saw the swivel seat at the camping and caravan show last week and it looked good but I still want to change to a single seat. My van is a full camper conversion and it would be better being able to move from front to rear with the single seat.

[NickJ]

I'm just thinking maybe I could buy a universal swivel base (£70 on ebay) for my van and then put any single seat in place of the bench seat.

Has anyone tried this?

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[Beaker]

I'm just thinking maybe I could buy a universal swivel base (£70 on ebay) for my van and then put any single seat in place of the bench seat.

Has anyone tried this?

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As long as the "universal" swivel base actually fits your transit you should be ok - but make sure it really is compatible before you buy one. It may still need the mounting holes re-drilling anyway. You will need a seat box/base - same as under the drivers seat, then mount any seat to that.

You may need to modify the seat runners and/or weld adapter strips or plates to the top of the seat box, depending on your choice of seat.

In theory, just about any seat can be made to fit, but some are much easier than others, Look for seats with flat runners as that dramatically reduces the amount of re-jigging required to get them to fit.

Also watch the seat's height. The swivel base adds a couple of inches to the height, and if you choose a seat that sits high off the runners, you can end up with your feet dangling off the floor or your knees jammed under the steering wheel. Many seats with lots of adjustment motors underneath sit high to make room for the motors.

Therefore manual adjustment, low profile sports car seats with flat runner rails are good options, for example Mazda RX-8, Toyota Celica, Audi TT and some Jaguar seats are all supposed to be good candidates.

Old Saab 900 (turbo) series leather seats are much favoured by the VDub crowd for T4 and T5 conversions as they are superb quality, supremely comfortable, fully manual, and the flat runners make them an easy fit onto VW and Transit seat box bases.

[Beaker]

Forgot to say that the seats for a Ford Galaxy/VW Sharan/Seat Alhambra have swivel bases and fit in a Transit. Often breakers will remove the swivels and sell the separately, so check they still have them fitted!

[NickJ]

Forgot to say that the seats for a Ford Galaxy/VW Sharan/Seat Alhambra have swivel bases and fit in a Transit. Often breakers will remove the swivels and sell the separately, so check they still have them fitted!

Direct fit without messing about to much?

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[Trannygrandad]

I'm just thinking maybe I could buy a universal swivel base (£70 on ebay) for my van and then put any single seat in place of the bench seat.

Has anyone tried this?

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I did that with my mk 6 replaced double pass seat with another drivers seat, All I had to do was swap the seat belt anchor point over to the other side of the seat & fitted a swivel plate between the seat & the base box. Quite straight forward actually & no drilling

You could also use, if you could find one, a left hand drive drivers seat, no need then to swap belt anchor point

would a custom be much different?

[NickJ]

I am concious on price with changing the seat. Anything newer than a MK6 seat of some sort would be more than I paid for my van.

I've seen plenty of seat base boxes on ebay not to expensive. I'm wondering if it would be worth trying to use a connect folding seat. I'm not to bothered about the seat swivelling. I would just like direct access to the back from the cab.

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[Beaker]

Forgot to say that the seats for a Ford Galaxy/VW Sharan/Seat Alhambra have swivel bases and fit in a Transit. Often breakers will remove the swivels and sell the separately, so check they still have them fitted!

Direct fit without messing about to much?

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I believe so - I've read several mentions of them being a direct fit.

[Wcoats]

Thanks for the replies.....A UK drivers seat on ebay is about £250.....A left hand drivers seat from the continent is £500+ and then carriage......I have a Polish friend in the car industry has said that he can source me a seat from the continent.....I'm going to hold on and see if he can source one for me.....seats are like hens teeth......I'll let you know how I get on....2nd choice would be a Galaxy seat this is not possible.

[johnaward]

Sorry everyone, i'm a tad confused.

Are we saying that a Ford Galaxy seat will fit directly to a Transit Mk8 seat base?

[Qwin]

I think swivel seats are a waste of time on smaller vans.
They use up precious space and serve no real purpose.
The space at the side entry door, in most cases, is a walk way, its difficult to add a useful table in front of the seat/s, so they are just additional arm chairs, with no real view of the surroundings. Had some on a 6m motorhome and never used them.

On my 2020 mk8 350 H3 L3 AWD, I just swapped out my double passenger seat for a single.
Took me 1/2 hour to find some on eBay and had the choice of three ranging from £275 to £850.
I went with the £275 one, it came from a 2021 350 RWD H3 L3, included the seat mounting base and the fabric is an exact match to my drivers seat, it was basically in mint condition.

The seat swap was not straight forward, even on a van just 4.1/2 years old, the mounting bolts, which stick through the floor and are exposed to the elements were rusty.
I used a wire brush on the exposed threads and WD40/oil a week or so before trying, but needed a 30 inch breaker bar to crack the big T55 Torx bolts. When fitting the single seat, it uses three of the captive nuts used on the double seat, at least on the mk8 it does. The 4th captive nut used for the single seat is under a piece of adhesive tape on the floor, I was surprised to find that this insert was not threaded, just a plain insert. Luckily the plain hole in this is the tapping size required, so I ran an M12 tap through it to form the thread for a T55 bolt.
There were a lot of cable harnesses to sort out and re route under the seat, mine, being an AWD had the gear box control module mounted to the double seat frame, so I had to make a mounting bracket to fix it to the single seat base.
The seat anchor point for the retractable belt, was a straight swap, from one seat frame to the other.
The walk way created between the two front seats has cut outs in the foam backed rubber matting, used by the double seat mount but now redundant. These cut outs are about 25mm deep, need filling and some form of over mat used to tidy it up and reduce any trip hazard.
All this went well, but was more work than I thought it was going to be.