Bonneville Seat Install by SSWEET9C1  Lots of pictures, including those of the rear brackets for use with the Bonneville power seat base.

The 93-95 Bonneville Tan Leather seats are a prefect match, and they did not change the colors in these years. My rear seat is from a '93 and my fronts are from a '95 and they match perfectly.

When installing the front seats on manual slide rails (for me, my driver seat is power, passenger is manual), be very careful not to have your head in front of the seat rails looking under to see how the holes match up, and hit the seat adjustment lever. Needless to say, I just was not thinking, trying to finish the project while I had daylight, and it cleaned my clock. Hit me dead on my chin, chipped one of my teeth, cut me up pretty bad, but it really didn't hurt that bad, just a lot of gushing blood! 15 minutes later, I was back attacking my seat install project, and vow that I will never make that stupid mistake again! I was going to photograph the front seat install, but after my near death experience, I didn't have the extra time (daylight) to do that. There are other sites with that information, and all I will say is. Drivers side, drill 4 new holes, inwards of the old holes (about 3/8 from the existing holes), and then I notched between the holes on the left most rail to add the ease of install. Worked perfectly. On the passenger side with a manual seat rail, little drilling is necessary. Opened up the holes on the rail closest to the trans tunnel (notch inwards towards the other rail), and was able to attach the seat normally to the right most rail using the pre-welded on nuts, but on the inner rail, I had to use the old bolts, combined with a nut that is normally used to attach the seat rail to the floor pan. This worked out great with the holes already in the Bonneville seats (each seat has 8 holes (4 have welded nuts, 4 are just plain holes). Look at the images below, I will expand on this greatly in the up coming weeks:

End Result: Compared to those bulletproof 9C1 seats, there is no comparison. Even the Impala guys at work were drooling over my new seats. Comfy and very supportive. Makes it feel like an entirely different car! I do believe I have the first B-Body that is converted entirely over to the Bonneville Leather Seats.

If you purchase a Bonneville front seat similar to mine, with the built in console, and it is power, the power controls are located on the front/left side of the seat. This means, if you have manual seats, you would simply need to purchase a Caprice power seat rail (or if you can do metal fabrication, modify the Bonneville Power Seat Rail and weld new brackets to the seat rail -possibly cutting up the ones from the caprice manual rail and re-welding them to the Bonneville rail-), run two wires from under the dash (power/ground) with a 25 amp fuse (I prefer to use MINI-FUSE's, in an inline holder). That would give you a 6-way power seat without having to run the wires up to the door, buy the new switch and pigtails, tear the door panel off, etc. So if you are looking for an easier way to add a power drivers seat to your car, this is the way to go. Just make sure if you attempt to modify the floor rail, you spend a good amount of time making sure that when you are done, it is very sturdy and doesn't stand the risk of breaking. Normal Disclaimers apply.

Above: You will notice the custom brackets I made. I simply drilled the two holes, bend that metal rod, so that it formed a U shaped bracket. It helps to bend it so far, where the two ends cross over, so that it holds itself against the bolt as you tighten it down. This location is PERFECT and allows adjustment of the rear seat both up and down, left and right.

Above: The top left picture shows 4 brackets at the bottom of the seat, and there are two at the top that engage the brackets shown in pictures 1 and 2. It is necessary to bend the upper brackets on the seat inwards so that it holds the seat tighter to the rear deck when installed. I found it easiest to install the rear of the seat first on the upper brackets, but keep the seat up about an inch or so from the rear deck. Install the bolts where the seat belts attach at the bottom of the seat on the two opposite ends of the seat. Now, slide the seat down a little and tighten up both bolts. When you do this, it will bend the lower brackets some (top right, picture 2), loosen them up, slide the seat down more, and do it again.. and you will eventually have the bracket bent perfectly. I did no bending by hand with these brackets. The two center brackets, once the seat was finally installed, I just took my hammer, and pounded them down to the contour of the floor pan (you could bend them and attach them to where the inner seat belts attach), and I did the same with the two outer brackets when they were bolted on at the seat belts. I used care not to dent my floor pan, and the end result was a rear seat that fit very well. Please note that if you install this in a tan interior car, you might get a little bit of that white backing shown in the rear deck area (look closely at the white border around the entire seat). I used some brown shoe polish (bottom, picture 3) to go along the top edge of the seat to change the color from white to brown, so that even if it does show just a tad, its not even noticable and looks totally stock.

Above: The two pictures show the insulation back in place, covered the homemade brackets. I also cut in half an old tan floormat and shoved it under the trim as shown. This hides any insulation from the rear seat not being perfectly contoured to the rear trim, as the caprice seat was. Once this was done, you can't see anything but some tan carpet when looking through the small side window and looks totally stock. Believe me, I am always one to complain of non-perfect installations, and this looks great.

Above: Due to the fact that the Bonneville seat does not have the notch/recess for the trans tunnel, you need to raise the level of the carpet up a bit. I didn't plan for this, so I didn't have some carpet padding on hand to do this the correct way. I used some cardboard instead, but will be changing it out in the next couple weeks to carpet padding. You could use just about anything, but it needs to be about an 1 1/2" thick and about 14-16 inches long. Go to high or too long, and your carpet will not fit correctly, and this is really just to help keep the front of the seat from rocking.

Above: Though not pretty and not perfect, you need to bend the lower seat attaching rod (and its not that easy either, I used the claw of a hammer to grab the rod and bend it). The thing you need to remember is, the brackets on the floor pan are about 2 inches more inwards than the Bonneville's. This means, you need to bend the rods inwards (towards each other), and forward to help push the seat under the back of the rear seat. I am still working on this to keep the seat from wanting to rock forward when sitting on the very tip of the seat, but for the most part, it looks stock when installed, and doesn't move when you sit in it normally. Some patience and work will surely net you a secure seat, and you can always shim the rear of the seat with carpet padding to give it a tighter fit with the floor pan.

Above: My favorite picture (left), that really shows off the real world look of the seats. The right picture shows the built in console on this seat (45/45 buckets were also available).

Above: Left picture shows the rear seat, with console and cup holders. On my rear seat, the arm rest actually opens, and it has two storage bins in there too! Talk about some major storage, with cup holders to boot. If you notice the black area in the rear seat, that actually opens to provide pass through to the trunk. I didn't feel like adding a pass through to my spare-tire, so I left my cutoff tool in my toolbox. You have a lot more options with this rear console, for electronic gadgets, etc. I was thinking of adding some Wig-Wag/Traffic Backer Controls, and Strobe Controls to keep the rear seat occupants busy. Front seats with the console and cup holder, nothing no one hasn't seen already.

Above: Picture of the seats from the rear of the car, they are very noticeable, and the back of the front seats.

Special Thanks to: Kelly Rosato and Elie Chouinard for providing me with the seats/information to obtain them! Thanks guys!

David Wambolt
Copyright 1998