Fold down rear seats to trunk

[theGman]

Has anyone here converted their FW to fold down rear seats, to open up the trunk space? My 95 can hold an army, but I would like to to more.

Thanks!

[caddycruiser]

I guess it could be done, just would take some rigging at the bottom of the backrest is bolted down to the floor solidly. I've pondered it.

Well, actually, I somewhat wondered about such a thing...then went to Lowe's with my dad back in March and low and behold found his own invention, done without ever a mention. What? He didn't do the whole seat, but when you put the rear armrest down...he cut that square out of the back and it's like a modern day ski pass through at will. Not hugely useful, but sure helps with pipe hauling and such.

But to do the seat...you'd have to figure out something with the bottom mounts and then also secure some kind of a latch system up top, easily released. Hmm...such a prehistoric and simple car, can't be THAT hard...or so I would think.

[Old Fleetwood]

Wasn't this an option on these cars, and didn't I see this somewhere "back when"?
I ran a search but couldn't find anything except FWD and newer models.

[caddycruiser]

Well, I partially take that back. There's pretty significant reinforcement in the body sort of crossing that area behind the seatback, I remembered, which kind of blocks a lot of the opening with the seat back removed or down as is. Unless removed (not a good idea), it would block most of any opening you would get by flipping the seat back down.

Again, unless I'm remembering what's there, incorrectly

[kevm14]

Being body on frame, that reinforcement is probably there simply to keep heavy trunk items from entering the passenger compartment upon a front end collision. So you'd have to do a lot of work to make sure that the seatbacks and any hinge/latch mechanism you installed was as strong as that reinforcement. I could be wrong but I wouldn't want to find out the hard way.

[theGman]

I hope that the supports behind the rear seat are not structurally necessary.
I have considered doing some junkin at the yard for inspiration on mounting the rear seat back into a tilt version.