So I mentioned this in another thread, but thought it might deserve it's own. In a nutshell... this will be an attempt to swap the passenger seat cushion, over to the driver's side. As you know, it's virtually impossible to find a 2nd gen Dak/Rango with driver's seat bolster in great shape... in a junkyard, anyway. I picked up the seat cushion today. There was a 2002 quad cab at the junkyard with somewhere between 120 - 150K on it. Passenger seat cushion is in great shape. But most any durango or Dak will have good looking passenger seats regardless of mileage.

Beautiful day here in ATL, not a cloud in the sky. Temp was in the 40s at the time. Truck was the nearest one to the door! There is an 03' right next to it with no bed. I was going to snag the PCM to keep as a spare, but it was gone after sitting a week.






Four bolts to get the seat out. This Dak has the console in the middle. My bench seats won't be so easy. Once you flip it over, the cushion is basically held on by the plastic clips you see here on the wires and metal frame. Release these and work the cushion up and off.




There are 9 clips in all. The last one is tricky to find. It's the one underneath the upholstery flap at the rear. Before I found it, I was scratching my head on how to get the cushion over the back, wondering if I was going to have to disassemble the seat.


Once you have the clips loose.... you just work the cushion up and off, reclining or straightening the seat as needed to give access. The whole thing took about twenty minutes from the moment my feet hit the gravel, till I was back at the cashiers.



And there it is. Just need to vacuum off a few dog and blonde chick hairs... maybe one and the same. Observe that the inner bolster is slightly higher due to the traffic of passenger butts. Nice thing is that once swapped, it becomes the outer bolster on the driver's side.



I'll be replacing this.... the bolster is pretty shot, but still in decent cond overall. Still comfy for the most part. I've seen worse with much less mileage. You can't beat cloth seats for durability. Can't image what leather would look like with as many miles I've got.




Now I'm sure you all are waiting for the install but you will have to be patient with me. I don't relish pulling out a bench seat, (the whole damn thing has to be pulled out) but I'm pretty sure it will work. I'm not wanting to do this twice and I need to run some good quality RCA cables under the carpet which I don't have yet. I have an amp under the back seat and I shoulda ran quality cables when I installed it years ago.

Will update on the next go-round. You'll have to settle with one more pic of the old girl right after getting washed, for now....

 

Wish mine was a 5th as shiny as yours. On the drivers side it looks like there is a extended notch for the reclining part of the frame. Is that just stretched fabric or are they actually cut different?

 

I think it's just the fabric got pulled up over time. You can see that seam with the darker cloth is getting pulled in on that side... plus all that fabric used to be filled with foam, which is now compacted. One unknown is that I'm going from a manual seat to power. There is cladding around the power seat which hides any holes I may have to make for switches, wires.... not sure till I get to it.

I can also swap out just the foam.... the cloth is held to it by strong velcro. I'd like to avoid that if possible.

 

You have the middle jump seat/console? It's still separate as I recall. Wasn't too bad to pull the seats. I do recall pulling the seat out in 3 pieces.

 

Yeah, the 40/20/40 split bench. I somewhat recall having to remove the entire thing. Maybe once they're out I can split them apart? According to this, it comes as one assembly....

https://www.justanswer.com/dodge/1h3...-club-cab.html

Dodge Mechanic: Mopar CertifiedHello, Ok you must have the 40/20/40 split seats in your vehicle. In that case the 2 bucket seats and the center console have to be removed as an entire assembly.

So you are going to do the same thing I suggested.......moving the seat forward and back to access the bolts holding the seats down to the floor, just this time you are needing to unbolt both sides and remove the entire assembly. Does that make sense? HTH.

 

took a look under my daks seat, pretty sure you should he able to swap that in without having to yank the seat.

mine are manual seats, are yours the same or power?

 

Driver's seat is power. I have a few more reasons to pull the seat anyway.

 

I just did that same thing, was tired of leaning toward door constantly. I have same seat foam/fabric pattern you do and had a really hard time finding a Dakota/Durango with same pattern. Went to two different yards and found a total of 1. Passenger side wasn't perfect, but way better than my current driver side, and yard didn't charge me anything for it so still did the swap. Much improved but still looking to find a better one. Think I might just move my own passenger side cushion to the driver side in mean time.

 

Is your drivers seat power? If so, did u make any changes to the material to make it work?

 

Nope, manual seats here. Zero changes to anything to make it work. Took seat cover off, pulled old and very destroyed off foam off and dropped the less destroyed foam on. Replace cover and done. Eazy-peasy.