Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

I'm refitting the seats but having difficulty getting them to locate in the runners. I'm assuming they should locate at the rear of the runners and slide forward? But cannot seem to be able to get far enough back to slide into the runners. Getting them to locate at the front and slide rearwards is not possible as there is not enough room in the footwells. Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks
Alan.

Try tilting the seat and engaging the runners with the tabs on the seat frame before fitting the runners to the floor. I believe the anti-tilt runners have welded studs rather than loose bolts to attach them to the floor so you can fix them from under the car with the seat in place.

I removed the first 3 or 4 inches from the front turn over so the tab can be placed straight down and the seat slid backward. Does not affect non tilt as in normal driving position the tabs are well towards the rear.
FWIW

Hi Alan,

I don't think there is an easy way to remove or fit the seat with these safety slides on the later cars, the only option is to unbolt the slides from the floor, fit to the seat, then bolt it all back in as a unit.

To get around that I trimmed 25mm off the top turnover at the rear of the slides, the seat can then be removed easily by unbolting the front crossbar (held by two bolts into the floor bobbins) and sliding to the rear which releases the two welded tabs on the bottom of the seat.

Cheers
Iain

I believe the tabs were added for some sort of NHSTA ruling. I honestly don't see the point. If you have your seat belt on, the seat is going no where in my opinion. But of course I would not want to get sued by anyone for following my suggestion. So do so at your own risk. I have three other Elans now (not a Sprint) and none of those cars have the tabs.

Many thanks for all of the replies. I decided to remove the rear 25mm turnover from the runners as per sprintsoff post.The seats are now fitted with no problems.
Alan.

My seats are out. One seat is missing one of the two rear tabs. I'm installing new runners over new carpet. I'm concerned with possible seat vinyl damage if I have someone weld-on a new tab. I'm going to use the one-tab seat as the driver's seat. As long as I wear the seatbelt, the seat isn't going anywhere.
Dick