Seat platforms lowered

I appreciate good seats in the car I drive. Modern cars usually have reasonably good seats but very often they are designed so that short people are able to move towards the steering wheel. The seats can be yanked up and down and most of the people are satisfied but it is very seldom that you find a perfect position if you are, like I am, 190 cm. If I am able to adjust the seat so that I can easily handle the car, it the inadequate support for thighs that finally lets me down. Especially the front-wheel driven cars have another typical structure which makes it almost impossible to feel comfortable behind the steering wheel. It is the distance between the pedals and the steering wheel. The rear wheel driven cars, like Mustang, have much nicer shaped triangle formed by the pedals-steering and the seat.

Having said that, Mustang is better, does not mean that it couldn't be better. The original seat is quite flat which means poor support for thighs. So the seat platform angle has to be changed. I am planning on using original seats (if I will find a pair with reasonable price) but will also keep an option for modern sport seats. Sport seats need to have their own seat tracks which will need clearance in height.

The solution to prepare for both versatility and better position is to lower and change the angle of seat platforms. A bonus of the operation is a little more headroom, which is welcome if I ever should participate track days with helmet. So without hesitation I grabbed my angle grinder and cut the rear flange off of the platform about one inch above the floor level.

The rear flanges cut off

Fitting. Masking tape shows where to cut and bend

It took quite a many times fitting before it sat nicely. Not a hard thing to do anyway. I cut and ground small pieces at a time until the shape followed the contours of the floor. Then a wise and a hammer were used to force the flange to smoothly touch the floor pan.

Floor finished with primer and paint

The inner surface got some paint too

Note that I did not weld a flange in the rear. The platform will lay welded on the subframe connector so I did not feel like the floor pan would require a flange.

Rear edge welded with beads to the floor 

The front flange welded with spots

Once done with welding I measured the change. The front is now 1,5 cm lower and the rear is 3,0 cm lower. The change can be seen in the below picture where the drilled out old spot welds can be seen in the side flange and in the rocker. 

Some grinding needed. Then final welding.

I did not have the seats at hand to test but if the lowering was too heavy, I can always return to original height using shims. On the other hand, the change is so small that I think there will be no trouble fitting the carpet.