Back in 1997 I bought a 75 FJ40. It was a good deal, needed little work and served as my daily driver for 10 years, at which point the engine “gave out”. The tub was shot at that point anyway, so it went into my garage and sat for another 9 years waiting for some TLC that never came. Last year I sold it and bought another 40. The point of this boring intro is that jump seats came with the one I bought in 1997. The covers and foam were in real good shape, but the bottom feet on the frame were completely rotted off (looked like they sat in the dirt exposed to elements for many years), so they sat in my garage for 19 years.

This year a need arose for me to have seats in the back of the the new 40. So I thought, why not rebuild the jump seats? Being the impulsive person that I am, I got right to work on it and didn’t take any before pictures (bad on me). But now that it’s done, I thought I’d post some info and pics because I think they came out really nice and maybe it would be useful to someone.

The first problem was fixing the rotted pipe. I had a hard time figuring out how to connect new pipe securely. After looking at alternative pipe options, I settled on 1 inch galvanized electrical conduit, very close to the same size.  I also found 1 inch galvanized round flanges with threaded holes for the base. I cut the flanges so they looked more like feet than plumbing, and screwed them tight onto the pipe at one end. I cut the pipe on the other end to 1/2 inch longer than the correct length, used my cutting wheel to cut 2 perpendicular slots into the pipe so I could tap in the 4 quarters and insert them into the seat frame, tapping until they were at the exact length. Then welded the connections.

Next problem was the aftermarket roll cage. The side bars in the back prevent the seat brackets from bolting into the tub frame, so I had to move the seats inboard. To do this I had to build extensions to connect to the seat and tub frames. I used 1 inch square channel 1/8 inch thick steel. Cut to length, connected to the tub with grade 8 nutserts and grade 8 hardware.

Because of moving in board, the rubber stops on the bottom of the seats didn’t hit anything. I decided the easiest way to support the seat and not look too bad was galvanized chain on both sides of the seat frames. So I removed the stops.

Lastly, I have been looking for a good place to keep my manual lug wrench. Decided it would work ok mounted on the driver’s side seat back. Hopefully, it won’t grow legs and walk off.

Thoroughly cleaned all the seat covers, primed and painted all the frame parts, and put it all back together.

Last thing is to replace the rotted web straps that held the seats up and the twisty button fasteners (for lack of the real name). Tried hardware, reupholstery and ended up at a marine supply store. Bought the twisty things, and some one inch webbing, cut the lengths, sealed the ends, fastened, and trimmed. Came out very nice.

Here’s some pictures of the finished (almost) product.