I went to the scrapper, found a beautiful rwd 1989 LE Dakota. Should have bought the whole truck and swapped cabs as it was in better shape than mine. What a shame to scrap a truck of that age in such good shape... anyways I scored/saved some bucket seats from the scrapper. My truck (1988) doesn't have bolt provisions for the bench seats, obviously. I thought I would luck out, would it be too difficult to make it work? Or is the cab shape unique to the point even if I did make bolt holes it still wouldn't fit? The truck at the scrapper has already been shredded! So unfortunately I don't have anything to work with.

Did a search, appears nobody has attempted this. Though the question has been asked before.

Thanks again!

 

The 1988 didn't offer buckets; but the 1989 did.

AND the bench seat hardware is the same.

All you'll need to do is drill the back holes, make a small bracket for the front (since they're L shaped), and be sure to reinforce the extra holes.

Probably the easiest retrofit you'll ever have.

What I have considered doing is taking a spot weld drill (one of those cutter bits designed to cut out spot welds), remove the front rail from the donor truck, bolt the seat into the one good hole and line both seats up, mark for the donor rail, cut out the old tab on my 1988, and weld the donor rail in so it's only needing one great big fender washer at the inside mounting hole I drill for the back.

RwP