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Ram - Dakota Seat Swap #2463231
03/08/18 06:33 PM
03/08/18 06:33 PM
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Evil Spirit Offline OP
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I have a couple of leather 99 Dakota R/T seats available to me. Anyone know if Dakota seats will directly bolt unto the mounts in a 96 Ram 1500? The Ram has the typical 40/20/40 seat with the fold down armrest. Dakota drivers seat is power, which is no problem to wire up. I know the obvious answer is try one and see, but the seats are wrapped up and in a friends loft, so hoping to see if anyone knows if they will or won't work before we get them down. I don't mind a little fab work, but I don't want to spend days trying to find a use for a couple used seats. Thanks


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Re: Ram - Dakota Seat Swap [Re: Evil Spirit] #2463445
03/09/18 12:00 AM
03/09/18 12:00 AM
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I doubt they would simply bolt in. I tried taking the seats from my wrecked 99 ram and putting them into my 97 ram and they wouldn’t work. I imagine the Dakota would be even more different yet. Let us know how it goes.

Re: Ram - Dakota Seat Swap [Re: Evil Spirit] #2463491
03/09/18 12:53 AM
03/09/18 12:53 AM
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I don't believe the Dakota cab is as wide as a full size Ram, I know the earlier Dakota were several inches more narrow then the Ram. I believe the new Dakotas got wider, but still not as wide as the Ram. If the widths are different, so are the floor pans, so it would stand to reason the seat brackets would also be different. Gene

Re: Ram - Dakota Seat Swap [Re: BleedDodge] #2463570
03/09/18 04:47 AM
03/09/18 04:47 AM
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Originally Posted By BleedDodge
I doubt they would simply bolt in. I tried taking the seats from my wrecked 99 ram and putting them into my 97 ram and they wouldn’t work. I imagine the Dakota would be even more different yet. Let us know how it goes.


The whole 99 assembly wouldn't bolt to the floorpan, or the seat bottom doesn't bolt up to the base "pedestal"? I also have a line on a set of 99 Ram seats. I haven't pulled one yet to see, but it looks like there is a base pedestal, the slider, and the seat bottom. Not sure how they attach together, or if they can be mix n matched.


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Re: Ram - Dakota Seat Swap [Re: poorboy] #2463585
03/09/18 06:37 AM
03/09/18 06:37 AM
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Originally Posted By poorboy
I don't believe the Dakota cab is as wide as a full size Ram, I know the earlier Dakota were several inches more narrow then the Ram. I believe the new Dakotas got wider, but still not as wide as the Ram. If the widths are different, so are the floor pans, so it would stand to reason the seat brackets would also be different. Gene


I'm pretty sure the center seat or console in a Dakota is narrower than a Ram, which may take up the floor pan difference.

I know the seats don't interchange as a whole base/slider/seat assembly - I was curious if just the seats themselves would swap on top of the bases or slides.


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Re: Ram - Dakota Seat Swap [Re: Evil Spirit] #2463746
03/09/18 02:34 PM
03/09/18 02:34 PM
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It wouldn’t bolt up. I didn’t remove the seats themselves from the pedestals. All I wanted to do was unbolt and take the seats from the 99 and put them in place of the ones in the 97. But the pedestals don’t bolt down in the same spots.

Re: Ram - Dakota Seat Swap [Re: Evil Spirit] #2464105
03/10/18 12:21 AM
03/10/18 12:21 AM
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I've played with Mopars for a long time. My experience with seats was that the 60s through the early 90s seats would swap along car lines or body styles, and the trucks would swap Dakota to Durango, and Ram to most full sized Dodge trucks of the same era.

Past the early 90s, lots of stuff changed. Until you run across someone that has had both seats from the same year/body styled vehicles apart, you won't know until you try it.
As listed above, seat brackets from a 97 Ram didn't fit a 99 Ram, who knows if the seats would have swapped on the brackets. Back in the old days I would have said yes, but these are not the old days. Too much stuff is body specific, model specific, and year specific. Gene

Re: Ram - Dakota Seat Swap [Re: Evil Spirit] #2464156
03/10/18 03:07 AM
03/10/18 03:07 AM
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I pulled up the P/N for my seat bases and they show interchange from 94-01(02) Rams . . . BUT . . .

A quirk I saw today was that the 99 quad cab seats had the chest seat belts in the seat backs, and my club cab has them in the cab sides. Changing the base mount to the floor might have been the factories way of making sure the trucks got the correct belts. Maybe std/club cabs got 1 style base, while quads got different bases. That might have been what BleedDodge ran into.

I have access to a free matching fabric passenger seat with a nice seat bottom. While I see the bottom cushions are mirror images, with a small indent for seatbelt clearance in the inside back corner, I think I can swap the fabric and cushion on to the drivers side base. It should last for at least a couple years, look better than a torn seat, and will be fine for a 22 year old truck.

Not entirely giving up yet on the leather R/T seats. I did see today that the metal seat cushion frame bolts to the sliders. Still a possibility that the Dakota seat tops will bolt to my Ram sliders/bases. Fingers crossed. And then there's always "plan W" - wire welder!


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Re: Ram - Dakota Seat Swap [Re: Evil Spirit] #2465036
03/12/18 12:29 AM
03/12/18 12:29 AM
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Plan "W" always works. It sometimes involves doing a few other things, but if there is a will, the plan "W" works.

Its not quite a bolt in like you were looking for. Gene







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