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If you are like me, you hate pitching tents and you spend many overnight 4-wheeling trips either under the stars or in the back of your SUV. In my case this is a ’90 Nissan Pathfinder which i needed to squeeze a little more space out of in order to sleep comfortably in the back. When the back seats are folded down, the lower cushions fold forward and are stick up above the cargo floor by about 8″. This difference in height blocks the use of the space between the folded rear seat and the front driver and passenger seats. |
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A simple solution to take advantage of this space is to remove the lower seat cushions from the rear seat and fill the space with a couple of Army surplus ammo cans which give you about an extra 20″ of space. This Extra 20″ is the difference between a 6′ tall adult squeezing in to sleep at an angle and jumping straight in with room to spare. The only issue is you will end up bolting in and un-bolting the rear seat cushions constatly which can be a time consuming process requiring tools that you won’t want to dig out all of the time. A quick cheap solution to this is to modify the seat hinges to be quick release and not require any tools. I’ll take you through it step by step.
You will need the following:
1. Using the 14mm socket and ratchet, unbolt each of the 4 bolts holding the cushions in. 2. Turn the cushion upside down and using a grinder, grind away the flared end of each hinge pin. 3. Using a punch and Hammer, push the hinge pin out of the hinge. The hinge will fall apart at this point. 4. I recommend spray painting the area of the hinges where the paint was removed by the grinder to eliminate the chance of rust. 5. Reassemble the hinge using the Wire Lock Pins as the hinge pins. 6. Bolt the cushions back in the Nissan Pathfinder using the ratchet and 14mm socket. The seats should now function as normal but when you want to remove them. simply remove the Wire lock pins and pull the bottom cushions completely out of the truck. I use surplus ammo boxes for tool storage on the trail which I put behind the front seats on their sides to basically extend the cargo floor to sleep. I then either roll out a sleeping pad or even inflate an air mattress before unrolling my sleeping bag. If need be, 2 can get cozy back there with this setup. |
Great idea!