Ariel.Club Forum

I thought I'd write up a post about the seats which Im currently installing into my atom 3

I've always hated the bench seat but never really wanted to go as far as shelling out for the expensive tillet option. After seeing many posts on the subject over the years i thought I'd give it a go at making my own seat bases and fitting some lightweight fibreglass seats. I went for some generic gloss black caterham style seats, as these and the runners were easy to get hold of and didn't cost an arm and a leg.

Now I had the seats chosen, I got to work on the seat base, which seems to be the biggest hinderence to fitting individual seats in the earlier atoms according to all the posts I've read.

Step 1:
I started with a cardboard template, making sure the bolt holes were in the right places, and setting the height from the tub. I used modeling cardboard to create this with. A bit of trial and error to start with but turned out ok. You can see the template in the first photos.

Step 2:
After I had made the template, next step was to Measure it and put into a basic cad drawing with dimensions added, I sent this to my local fabricators who were able to make a prototype for me out of 4mm thick Aluminium.

Step 3:
Once I had the prototype, I then went about seeing how it fitted, a few adjustments needed for the location of the front bolt holes in the side mounts. And some reinforcements needed. Once the changes were added back into the cad drawing, I sent the prototype back to the fabricators for the changes to be made

Step 4:
The additions were made to the final seat bases, they were then powder coated in Matt black and collected today. I've fitted the drivers seat and it's a perfect fitment.

I have some high tensile M10x25MM bolts on order for the base arriving tomorrow. Once these arrive and I've managed to fit the passenger seat I'll post some photos of the completed set up!

So how much back and forth movement do the seats have, do they sit higher than the bench style?

A fair amount of adjustment back and fourth tbh, and I'd estimate sitting about half an inch higher then in the bench seats at most.

Very impressive and the mount looks very similar to the factory one used for the Tilletts. Just be aware that by raising the height of your seat, depending on how tall you are (I'm 5'10") you may find the top of your steering wheel obscures the top half of your speedo. To address this on my car, I had to remove my Spa shiftlight steering wheel and source a standard one, and even then it still slightly obscures the top of the speedo. An open-topped wheel would solve this completely though.

I look forward to seeing the finished article.

And finished. Both seats in, tested, no flex and only sit about half an inch higher then in the bench seat. Pictures below show the seat base fitted, with hen with the seats in, maximum front and maximum rear adjustment.

Great post! Well done Tommy.
I personally dislike the bench seat and am considering changing them to individual seats. I contacted Tillet who have given me a price list of the their seats, mounting brackets and runners.

Hi Tommy , Gavin here from Melbourne Australia , sent a PM in regards to obtaining from you the templates for these new brackets as we will need to do similar here for rego . let me know if you did not get them, as they seem to be in the "out box" only ... not sure why not sent .. thanks

GavinK64 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 29, 2022 2:49 am Hi Tommy , Gavin here from Melbourne Australia , sent a PM in regards to obtaining from you the templates for these new brackets as we will need to do similar here for rego . let me know if you did not get them, as they seem to be in the "out box" only ... not sure why not sent .. thanks

It stays in the outbox untill it has been read.