O.R.T.
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- Sep 21, 2013
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Since this topic just came up in the "What'd ya do to your 4th Gen this week?" thread I might as well post this in here. This way if anyone else finds the way I do these useful it'll put you on the right path. The reply I posted there follows.
I thought I'd shared these in here back in February 2017 but apparently I only shared them w our club. At any rate, fold the seat up, removing both main and the middle headrests, stowing them under in the understorage (or garage). You're gonna first lay a couple pieces of really good cardboard aside so you can trace a little wider than the seat cushion inset profile. Remove your drawing and go over to your tailgate and cut out the template. Flip your finalized template/drawing over after cutting it out and you have a left and right supporting structure. Lay your fabric (in this case an Army/Navy Blanket courtesy of Grandpa from the 1960's) so it hangs about 4-5 inches over and beyond the top of the seatback being mindful to not bury the 3rd-Strap Loops for the child seats. Lay the seat out flat (unfolded) now. Place a towel down and begin tucking in the upper fabric (Army Blanket) being mindful to not bury the seat belts or child seat strap buckle (metal) loops. Once all is tucked in place your cardboard cutouts in the spots where the foam seat bottom is in main contact by the child seats to keep the weight spread out and reduce wear on the foam. You can see from image #1 why to do this step. These are the dimples/dents the child seats leave in the foam after a while. The foam eventually will come back to shape but in my case, needing these in here for easily another 4-6 years I want the seat foam to have a good fighting chance. Put a second towel over and tuck that in. Install the child seats as you normally would. If ya like then just take your truck to your local Highway Patrol, Fire, or Police Station (even an Ambulance Company or Hospital can do this, all responders are trained for this p.r./safety inspection stuff) to have them inspected for proper installation. At some point I will finally get a hold of either a grey Footsoldier or Swiss Army version so it looks more fansy-color-coordinated but for now a green blanket that survived a war and then 4 generations of family is fine w me.
I thought I'd shared these in here back in February 2017 but apparently I only shared them w our club. At any rate, fold the seat up, removing both main and the middle headrests, stowing them under in the understorage (or garage). You're gonna first lay a couple pieces of really good cardboard aside so you can trace a little wider than the seat cushion inset profile. Remove your drawing and go over to your tailgate and cut out the template. Flip your finalized template/drawing over after cutting it out and you have a left and right supporting structure. Lay your fabric (in this case an Army/Navy Blanket courtesy of Grandpa from the 1960's) so it hangs about 4-5 inches over and beyond the top of the seatback being mindful to not bury the 3rd-Strap Loops for the child seats. Lay the seat out flat (unfolded) now. Place a towel down and begin tucking in the upper fabric (Army Blanket) being mindful to not bury the seat belts or child seat strap buckle (metal) loops. Once all is tucked in place your cardboard cutouts in the spots where the foam seat bottom is in main contact by the child seats to keep the weight spread out and reduce wear on the foam. You can see from image #1 why to do this step. These are the dimples/dents the child seats leave in the foam after a while. The foam eventually will come back to shape but in my case, needing these in here for easily another 4-6 years I want the seat foam to have a good fighting chance. Put a second towel over and tuck that in. Install the child seats as you normally would. If ya like then just take your truck to your local Highway Patrol, Fire, or Police Station (even an Ambulance Company or Hospital can do this, all responders are trained for this p.r./safety inspection stuff) to have them inspected for proper installation. At some point I will finally get a hold of either a grey Footsoldier or Swiss Army version so it looks more fansy-color-coordinated but for now a green blanket that survived a war and then 4 generations of family is fine w me.
