To lose about 80 lbs. of excess weight in a Ford Mustang, removal of the rear seat and spare tire are always a first for the Ford Mustang enthusiast. Aftermarket rear seat delete kits cost over $60 for a plain Jane piece of 1/4 plywood and carpeting, and for the high quality pieces, you could expect to fork over about $100. I chose to just carpet the areas in my car that were around and under the seat with 1/8″ marine carpeting.

Materials:
10mm wrench/socket
15mm wrench/socket (opt. front seat removal)
5/16″ wrench/socket
5/8″ wrench/socket (opt. front seat removal)

Expected Time:
Less than 1 hour

Expected Procedure:
Pull the seat backs down and remove the 3 (5/16″) bolts holding the headrest into place. Pull the headrest out of the car.

Feel under the bench seat and in the middle of each side rests a white button. Press this button in with your finger and the bench will pop right out. Remove the bench from the car.

Remove the 2 (10mm) bolts holding the top of the rear seat back bracket to the car.

Remove the 2 (10mm) bolts at the bottom of the back rest and pop the rear seat backing out of the car. Carefully remove this heavy chunk as to not scratch your interior in the process.

The results:

I achieved this flowing look for about 20 dollars worth of a 9′ x 9′ carpet, and I have a bunch of extra material too. With the extra material, I chose to recarpet my trunk to match the rear seat. To do this, I fiberglassed a 1/4″ piece of plywood 28″ x 31″ over the spare tire well and allowed to dry for 2 hours before placing the carpet over the mostly dry area. This method allows for a strong base to put things on in the trunk, and the carpet is glued down in place by the gel-like fiberglass after 2 hours. The results are a flat, strong, and even flowing carpeted surface from the rear bumper to the front seat. Who can fit in the rear seat of a Mustang anyway!

Also, removal of the front seat can save an additional 35lbs or so. The front seat is held in by 2 (5/8″) bolts and 2 (15mm) bolts.

Total weight saved: spare tire (35lbs) + rear seat and bracket (35 lbs) + front seat (35lbs) = appx 105lbs of excess weight. These things are easy to remove and reinstall, and can be done in under 1 hour.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 18th, 2006 at 10:01 pm and is filed under Projects. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.