I managed to pickup some parts this week, including the missing heater ducts, the exterior stainless mouldings, the driver's side window glass channel and the metal glass retainers for both doors. In looking for a replacement seat, I ran across a 1979 Ford Ranger Custom Supercab pickup truck with a split back bench seat. What I found was rather impressive is how much this seat looks like the original seat, including dimensions. It is slightly wider then the stock bench seat but is almost the same height at the back and the bottom cushions. It is about an inche wider at the back and gets progressively wider toward the front of the lower cushion. With some foam trimming this should work.

I liked the original bench seat, but getting rid of the gas tank in the cab was a must. By doing so, their is this nice space behind the seat that can be used. So I brought the Ford seat home today and put it in the cab. It's sitting on the original hacked up (by the previous owner) riser, so it's not fitting right at the moment. In fact, the doors won't full close cause of this. It looks like the wide end of the front will need to be trimmed. The back folds forward at an angle like the old split 50's coupe seats use to, which I really liked. This gives lots of access to behind the seat. Their are a couple of mods floating around the internet, to modify the original seat so the back cushion (not the back of the frame), pulls forward. This is pretty nice idea, but still seemed to much like a hack with the frame back and support be in the way. I wanted something that looked more natural.

One of the biggest problems with finding a replacment seat, is finding one that didn't have a high back (one that did not exceed 29 1/2 inches), so it would sit at the bottom or below the corner windows, as the factory seat did and finding a seat that wasn't so modern, it looked out-of-place. The biggest problem I see with the seat I have chosen is the lack of room for retracting seat belts. I may be stuck using fixed lap belts as a result.