How to make the passenger seat the driver's seat
 

In time the driver's seat boasters start to show wear while the passenger seat looks virgin. So naturally the thought occurs – why not swap seats. This would put the wear on the drivers seat to the inside of the passenger seat where it wouldn't continue while making the drivers seat new again. What could go wrong? There's at least one thread here where people say, “It is easy”, and then someone writes in asking how to remove the slider bolts. Then the thread dies.

It seems logical that all one should have to do is move the sliders from one seat to the other. Looking under removed seats you see five pan head bolts with internal hex drive that appear to mount the sliders. Insert the proper tool and immediately round the hex. So, maybe there's thread locker on the threads (there is). Apply heat to another bolt and still round the hex. By the way, you can't move the sliders from one seat to the other, the seat frames are left and right. In other words, the seat frame has to stay in the driver's or passenger's position.

These instructions apply to Evo 8 seats. The seats from a 9 are probably the same, I haven't checked. I have Evo 9 seats in my Evo 8. If I ever have them out for examination I'll update this post.

The seat belt side slider covers both the fastener for the trim piece (and that trim piece covers the bolts that attach the seat back) and also the area where the seat fabric attaches to the frame. For those reasons, that slider needs to come off. Place a seat on your workbench upside down with the back of the seat hanging off the workbench. On the SEAT BELT SLIDER SIDE ONLY (the other slider remains on the seat frame) see three pan head bolts in the channel. Only the front and rear bolts mount the slider. The center bolt is there to hold the slider assembly together. Leave it alone.

Time to start drilling. I used the following sizes of high speed bits; 11/64, 15/64 and 5/16. The two smaller sizes are to center drill the bolt and the 5/16th is to cut the head off.

In total you have four bolts to drill, two per seat. A word about drill bits. These bolts are tempered and quenched. They are hard on the outside – about as hard as an expensive drill bit. These bolts can dull a new bit in as little as five seconds. So you either need a number of new bits or you need the ability to sharpen bits. If you don't know how to sharpen drill bits youtube or a drill doctor is your friend. I got a sharpening tool from Harbor Freight that worked well once I figured out the very poor instructions. You will spend more time sharpening than drilling. Use wheel bearing grease as a drilling lubricant. Oil makes too big of mess. You don't want oil on fabric.


https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.evo...27b6585656.jpg


Once you've drilled down to the thickness of the head on the pan head bolt with the 5/16th bit, the bit should take the head off. But if you are a little off center, hit it with a chisel from the side. Drilling too deep will remove material from the stub of the bolt that you need for the next step.

Remove the slider. Now, using a small pipe wrench (8 inch in my case - I also needed a cheater on the pipe wrench in order to turn out the stubs), remove the two bolt stubs.


https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.evo...27b6585656.jpg


Remove the two plastic fasteners in the trim at the hinge point of the seat/back and after pivoting the trim out of the way, remove the internal hex machine screws that secure the back to the seat (2 per side). Remove the back.


https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.evo...27b6585656.jpg


With the seat still upside down on the workbench, push down compressing the foam and release the fabric clips on all four sides of the seat. You will also find some double sided tape at the front you will have to deal with. Peel the fabric off as best you can. Remove the seat foam and fabric as a unit.


https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.evo...27b6585656.jpg


On the seat back remove the knob on one side and the plastic plug on the other. The rod needs to be driven through the back until it sticks out the other side 1.5 inches from the metal surround. Use a wooden block or plastic hammer. In the middle of this process swap the two trim pieces (the pieces held in place by one plastic fastener) from seat back to seat back. The notched trim piece goes on what will become the seat belt side (the side opposite to the direction you drove the rod). Tap the internal star washer back in place with the rod now protruding out the other side.

With both seats disassembled swap the seat upholstery and then the seat backs onto the opposite seat frame. This again is easiest done with the seat positioned as it was when you were taking it apart. You will find the seat back difficult to replace because the mounting points tend to poke into the foam when reinserted. Press the foam out of the way with your fingers. Where the double sided tape was, use glue. I used yellow 3M weather strip adhesive. I'd suggest renewing the thread locker on the bolts. Buy four bolts that match the bolts that mount the seat back and use them to remount the removed sliders (M8-1.25X25 Socket Head Cap Screw Class 12.9). Stick on the plastic knobs and plugs and you are done.


https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.evo...27b6585656.jpg

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.evo...27b6585656.jpg

Here's the finished seats and you can see the wear on what is now the inside of the passenger seat. These seats look dirty in this picture but it is something the camera is doing. The factory seats in my wife's WRX kill my back so these seats are going into that car.

this is awesome! thanks so much for doing the research on this. How much time did you spend on the swap altogether?

Thanks for the compliment.

When I found I couldn't unscrew the slider fasteners I scored a pair of SE seats on ebay. That was two years ago. Since then this has been bugging me. Last week the forecast was rain all week. So, I decided to have another go at the original seats. I spend Monday and Tuesday scratching my head and learning to sharpen drill bits. Tuesday evening I had one seat apart. On Wednesday afternoon I tore the second seat apart and assembled both in two hours.

Once you have the tools assembled and these would include sharp drill bits or the ability to sharpen them (Harbor Freight $40), replacement fasteners (Fastenal $3) and the glue or double sided tape of your choice, I'd say 4 hours maximum not including pulling the seats out of the car. However, I can't over emphasize the importance of sharp drill bits. These bolts laugh at anything but a very sharp bit. Once you've drilled the heads off the two bolts on each seat the rest is very easy.

Just did mine worked perfect Thanks

Awesome! How long did it take you?

I hope other people will see that this can add years to the life of their seats.

I just did this, the instructions are really good, but it took me about 5 hours to do the swap. Mostly because the drilling is as slow as it sounds (and I had 4 seats to drill on :( ). I actually swapped the seat bottoms from a another set of seats, due to the bottoms being destroyed on one set. Take your time when drilling so you don't go too deep and sharpen or have a lot of bits handy. I ended up just using multiple bits. The suggestion to use wheel bearing grease was awesome, by the way, I would not have ever thought of that.

Other things I would add to have on hand:
-Tap and die set - help clean threads, especially getting the threadlocker off
-Black paint w/ brush - I used automotive touch-up paint, but basically just something to paint over spots where you might expose metal/scratch off paint (not required, but prevents rust and looks a little better)

Thank you very much for making this guide!

Nice write up

This can make a nice evening project! Thank you for sharing this.

Thanks for the great write-up.

great write up!

To help others looking to do the swap, I was able to tackle this project over the weekend, I decided to take a different approach and ended up swapping the seat foam and seat covers from the passenger side to driver side. It took me about 6 hours in total to get the seats out, remove the foam/covers, and swap them, so not sure if it's any better than just drilling the brackets out. It's a bit hard to get out the bottom cover clips on one side due to the bracket covering the bottom of the seat, but it is doable with a bit of elbow grease.

this thread was kind of helpful for the takedown:

https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/ev...th-recaro.html

additional comments:
Having owned an STi previously, I've seen some build threads on Subaru forums in which people were able to successfully swap in evo recaros by changing out the seat brackets by removing the hex screws without any of the drilling - not sure if this is an option or not, as I didn't go this route.

Best of luck! the seats feel good as new, and I was also able to patch up a hole that had developed on the drivers side bolster, easily saved a couple hundred bucks for ~6 hours of tinkering!

Did you swap the seatback fabric and foam? I also wanted to do that and that's what stymied me, I couldn't remove the shoulder harness plastic inserts. I did a lot of probing with a screwdriver but no joy. Fortunately, the seat backs are identical and can be swapped.

You, my man, have the magic touch. Did the bolts exhibit blue thread locker?

That's what I thought!
Plenty of people had issues, but I tried anyway.

They did have thread-locker on them, it was the first thing that went my way all week so maybe I earned it haha.