In that last post, I mentioned that I planned to reinstall the sport seats in Ebony some years from now when I was ready to sell it, or at least give the buyer the option of choosing between the installed standard seats (which I'm calling "touring seats") or the more aggressive sport seats. My plan was to build very sturdy boxes to store the sport seats, and when I was done with them, use those same boxes as shipping crates for an eBay sale. And that's exactly what I did!
The first step was to buy a cheap set of seat covers from Kmart, to act as dust covers for a bit more protection. Here's the last look at the driver-side sport seat, with the not-very-elegant cover installed in the right-hand picture:
With the seats covered, I could start making sawdust. I made skids to mount each seat on. The runners are pressure treated lumber to stand up to being stored on concrete, and the rest of the box is 5/8" thick construction grade plywood.
One problem was that, since the seats are electric, I couldn't move them back and forth to uncover the mounting holes at front and back. I had left the back holes uncovered when I removed the seats, so I could simply bolt through those holes. I needed a way to clamp the front of each seat rail. A simple piece of wood would have sufficed, but I do like to do things the complicated way. I made aluminum clamp bars, carefully milling off saw marks and drilling the holes exactly 1.000 inches apart. Good millwork practice, and it paid off when I needed some spacers underneath the bar - I knew exactly how far apart to drill holes in those also.
The bolts at front and rear thread into metal threaded inserts, installed from the bottom. That will insure that they are very unlikely to pull out, even if treated roughly during shipping.
Once the bases were done, I created boxes designed to slip on around the mounted seat, and screw from the sides into the skid runners. There's at least two inches of clearance from box to seat on all sides.
I installed the boxes around the mounted seats, and then fitted the fronts, held on with washer-head screws designed for use with the Kreg jig. Those also have a lot of holding power. The fronts are rabbeted around the edges, so they fit tight in the box to close it tight against critters. Here's a completed box temporarily sitting on a rolling furniture dolly. Note the handles on the side to help with moving. Those are also held on with bolts and threaded inserts.
Once both boxes were complete, I enlisted some neighborhood help to set them, one at a time, in the bed of my pickup. I carefully pulled it around to the front of the Grant St. Garage, and stored both boxes in the front of a parking garage I keep for members of my fleet:
That's Merlot, the Z4 Roadster, parked in front of them. The angle makes it look like they're touching the car, but there's actually about six inches of clearance.
So, I feel very comfortable that the seats are safe until I need them again. But now I'm thinking... maybe I should go ahead and just sell them now. A set of good-condition sport seats brings $1500 or more on eBay. The only problem is that, since that wasn't the original plan, I didn't take photos of both seats from multiple angles before boxing them. I'd have to drag them out, unbox them, photograph everything, and box them back up! Maybe easier to let them rest for a while.
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