Keep or remove rear seats?

[jtaborsky]

My '87 Bronco II is not necessarily my daily driver, but I prefer to drive it daily. I would prefer downtime be minimized, but I can still get to work in the morning..

I want your opinions about keeping or scrapping the rear seats.

I want to keep them because they are in awesome shape and they make the cargo area a flat unit when they are folded up. I want the flat cargo area for my spare tire and my subwoofer box.

I want to ditch them because I almost never have people in the rear seats, they soak up water too easily, and I would have to find a new way to mount my sub.

Open to all opinions! Sorry I'm so wordy.

- Joe

 

[Josh B]

Flip a coin

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

Why are they soaking up water? Are you running a chop top? In your shoes I would fabricate a folding lid to keep the back flat. Under the lid is storage for? Second battery? Air tank? Tools?

 

[wildbill23c]

I have thought about this as well, but if you fold the back seats down you have a lot of flat storage area so I haven't really thought any further about removing them, and what would I do with them anyhow if I did remove them? I wouldn't throw them away as I never know when I'd need to haul passengers for some reason so I would want to keep that option available or if it were ever to be sold I'd throw the seats back in. Not sure how hard they are to completely remove but I'd think folding them down and leaving them in the vehicle would be much easier and quicker than trying to build something to make a completely flat cargo area after removing those seats. Maybe fold the seats down and cut a sheet of particle board or something similar for a hard surface to put in when you need the flat cargo area, and could take out if you need the seating room.

My original thoughts with my 88 Bronco 2 were to use it as a camping rig and throw a sleeping bag in the back or similar idea. Build some sort of platform for sleeping with storage underneath, but it couldn't be too tall otherwise you wouldn't have any room to lay down LOL. So I scrapped that idea rather quickly but haven't been able to go camping for a few years anyways so really have given the seat removal or redesign much thought sense then.

 

[Josh B]

On the lighter side, it would make it lighter (pardon the pun ) I've read for every hundred pounds lighter you save 1 mpg, and that likely be a hundred.
Just a little something else to think about if mileage is any factor. Plus extra cargo room if you're packing up to travel or go camping

 

[4x4junkie]

I debated pulling the rear seats out of mine, but decided to keep them. It's not often I have rear passengers, but it has happened a time or two when plans form spontaneously, so they've come in handy those times. Normally they stay folded flat and my storage/sleeping platform deployed over them.

Really it depends on how you use the truck and how often you carry (or how much you want to be able to carry) passengers.

 

[OldMan2]

I had a '92 Blazer. I took out the back seats, decked the entire back with 3/4" plywood and then glued a flat carpet to the plywood. I loved it. Fishing tackle, dogs, whatever. It was great, but the dang truck was a major money pit. I sold it, but still miss it.

 

[Josh B]

Looks great! Nice trailer too! I'd like one of those
Thank you sir, for standing up for our country!