Rotating Front Seats On Ghia Model

[jkspoff]

I am planning on installing some leather seats for my Galaxy Ghia, the problem is, the seats are leather and have the built in DVD screens, but do these seats without the rotating base fit in the same holes as the conventional Ghia seats, has anyone done this conversion before ?

My second query is, can the rotating seats base be transferred onto the fixed seats ? I will not be using the DVD screens, so the multi-media wiring will not be an issue ?

Any ideas ? :D

[Mirez]

Hey you got a set then? Congrats! Where'd you source it from in the end?

 

To answer your question the physical mounting points are the same for the rotational and non rotational seats, although the plastic surrounds to the "box" cavity that sits under the seats (where the electronics used to be) was different on mine which caused the seat not to sit right until swapped or modified.

The swively bit is intregal to the seat base so I wouldn't have thought its an easy unbolt job, more a take off the base covers and swap them over assuming they are the same design and bolsters.

[jkspoff]

Thanks for the info, I have seen a set, but not yet decided whether to get them or not, when you mentioned about the seats not sitting right in the space, what modification did you make ?

[Mirez]

The plastic surround of the box unit has two vertical lips coming up from it that the rail of the seat sits in, the non rotating ones seem to have wider rails and although they align to the floor plan bolt holes the plastic lips are essentially under them so the seat sits on the plastic lips and not the floor plan. I simply removed the lips with a sharp stanly knife and a pair of pliers - perhaps not the most appealing solution but you dont see it as the seat sits over it and when you dont have the plastic box unit to swap over its the most practical solution I could think of!

[jkspoff]

OK, thanks, so the seats should be a relatively straight swap, other than losing the rotating function, I wonder how easy it would be to wire up the LCD head rests in the seat backs to an after market DVD player.......Did you have any other problems fitting them, like wiring etc, or seat belts ? Thanks

[Mirez]

You wont wire the screens up to an aftermarket kit easily - simply because they arn't composite inputs (yellow, red and white phono plugs) like you might expect but digital drive from the visteon controller. For simplicity I would get hold of the ford controller and wire it in using that as its actually a good system (virtually the same one as the mondeo uses and is interchangeable)

 

Seatbelts you dont change as they are attached to the chassis of the car and not the seat, just the catch which is intregal to the base - there are no revision changes to the system from 94 to 04 and even then its still all interchangeable. No other problems at all, its a very easy strait forward swap, only wiring you'll have to the seats is the SRS Side airbag system for which the wiring hasn't changed at all during production, the multimedia system which you can work on later and heated seats if you have them, which again isn't showing any variations.

[jkspoff]

Great, thanks for the excellent info, I'm reassured enough now. I have replaced a Mondeo estate interior before now, fairly straight forward, until I got to the rear seats, they are totally different in the estate than that of the hatchback and saloon, wider base seat and different positioned fasteners on the backs ! Didn't realise until after I'd bought them, it took a lot of butchering to get them to fit, and they never looked right, but I am convinced these now that these won't have any issues. Thanks Mirez.