Those who know me personally know that I'm always on the search for leg room... As a 6'4" man, my knees generally wind up pushing on the backs of seats in cars, buses, airplanes, etc... Of course, I also run into this issue when sitting behind the wheel.
Tired of my knees constantly hitting the steering wheel of my 3-series, I decided it's time to do something about it. Shocked by the outrageous cost of some custom options, I opted to take care of this job myself.
With the driver seat as far back as possible, my Bimmer still had about 4 inches of room between the back of the seat and the rear passenger seat. Since the seat will still be adjustable post-modification, I figured why not take advantage of all the room I can get?!
A quick trip to Home Depot got me two steel bars, 36" long, 0.25" thick, and 1.5" wide. For only $20, I really can't complain! I knew that my rails would have to be at least 14"+, which is why I opted to get two steel bars instead of just one.
Removing the seat was surpisingly easy, but it uncovered 25 years of gunk! Kidding, it's not like this is the first time the interior has seen a shopvac... But the dust and dirt that accumulates underneath the seat brackets is impossible to reach without removing the seat, so I took the time to get it all cleaned out and nice.
I measured 14" center-to-center between the mounting bolts, which gave me the minimum distance I needed for my brackets. Adding the 4" extra legroom I wanted plus 2 x 0.75" to account for the holes being drilled offset from the end of the brackets, my total required length is 19.5" per bracket. I cut mine to 20", just to give myself a little wiggle room if I needed it.
Cutting the brackets and drilling the holes was a breeze. After very careful measuring and marking, the holes came out nicely centered, and I used a countersink bit to de-burr the edges of the holes. Not perfect, but it definitely did the job.
A little wipe-down with some IPA removed the grease, and the brackets were ready to go! I knocked down any sharp corners with a file. I decided to leave the brackets unpainted to reduce rub-off on the upholstery.
Installing the brackets onto the frame was simple enough, I just used the hardware that was originally used to mount the seat:
The bolts pictured above unfortunately we're not compatible, as the nuts were too large and did not give enough clearance for the seat to slide, so I had to remove the whole assembly again and find new bolts... The best replacement was an allen-head bolt with accompanying washer and nut.
I used a wrench to hold the bolts in place underneath the rails while I mounted the seat from above. There was not much clearance below the brackets, but luckily the wrench could slide under. This was very effective, and made the installation much easier.
With the seat on top, it was just a matter of screwing the bold into all four bolts! Tightened down, the seat was very rigid, no instability or wiggling of any kind.
Now there's very little space for a backseat passenger when fully pushed back, but the seat will still adjust if needed. Generally I don't carry many passengers, so no issue.
Overall this was a fun and simple project. Aside from the frustration of having the wrong bolts at first, everything came together smoothly!
Thanks for reading,
Juju
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