Actual, complete, ridiculously thorough third row swap completed. (Pic heavy)

[Dr. Monkeypants]

Let me preface this by admitting I have issues that building cars can’t fix. But I keep trying because it’s stupidly fun.

This story begins when I was looking for a new 4Runner back in June. I saw the Nightshade and was in love except they all had third row seats, which was an issue because 1) I don’t have kids and 2) I don’t like five other people enough to cram them all into one car with me. I found one in NorCal that the dealer seemed motivated to move. So, I actually drove up and bought it *after* deciding I’d rip them out, not having any idea how to do it properly. Plus they gave me over $4k off sticker and a more than fair trade-in for a three owner 2015 M3 with a weird engine knock and four curbed wheels, lol.

Aaaaaanyway, I posted looking for a Limited to swap with so we could go leather to leather, but that didn’t materialize. I ended up connecting with [MENTION=198699]gdavis1233[/MENTION] who has a two row Trail Premium and a suitably sized family to make the most of a third row and some money to spend to make this happen. More importantly, he was willing to come by my shop so we could do some exploratory disassembly.

So we did that. And we found there’s about 20 bolt locations that differ from 2 row to 3 row. No big deal. But there’s also these goddamn brackets that the 2 row trucks that the 3 rows don’t:

Cogitation occurred. Much of it. Because I wasn’t interested in doing it if I couldn’t pull it off at a factory level. And that meant solving five problems:

1) reupholstering his 2nd row seats to match mine
2) sourcing the interior panel for the JBL sound system
3) finding those damn brackets
4) sorting through which bolt holes are there and which are threaded and which I’d have to rivnut
5) how the hell do we make proper upper mounts for the 3rd row seatbelts

#1 and 2 are easy in LA: Just throw money at it and it’ll happen.
So I did.
I managed to get my local parts counter to almost match the online price for the inner quarter panel. That was nice. Then I spent a half-day driving around LA to various upholstery shops checking them out. Settled on Bill Dunn on Lincoln after seeing their work. Here’s the first seat cushion they recovered to check fit and finish:

#3 Was a bit more difficult. You can’t just buy the brackets. You have to buy the entire inner wheel arches.
So I did.
After some measurements, I took a spot weld cutter to them to pull those two brackets off, still undecided on exactly how I’d mount them:

#4 Wasn’t necessarily a big deal. Most of the screws are standard M10 and M6, or so we thought. The damn M10s are 1.25mm pitch instead of the usual 1.5mm and there aren’t steel rivnuts available in 1.25mm pitch. Ok, whatever. We’ll have some of each. I’ll get black screws for the 10x1.5mm so there’s less confusion. We know some of the M10 are there under sheetmetal and some have to be installed. I decided to use a 3/4” holesaw like a spotweld cutter to open up the ones we knew were there and a step drill for the ones that weren’t:

Which brings us to...

#5 D-pillar Seatbelt anchors. It’s been so long I completely forgot the NHTSA requires any seatbelt anchors to use 7/16-20 screws and couldn’t figure out why half the bolts for the rear seat mounts were 11mm OD... Good thing I had a thread gauge and we realized they were SAE because I definitely don’t have an M11x1.27 tap, lol. I had some ø1.125” stainless bar stock so I made a couple of nuts that would sit behind the panel to anchor the belts. I welded a piece of wire to them so we could fish them into the pillar and somewhat hold them in place while we screwed the anchors to them. Hilarity ensued with the first one, but we made it happen and the second one went in like a charm:

Continued below:

 

[Dr. Monkeypants]

Sweet, right? That covered all the hard modifications for the 2 row car to get a third row into it. But now I had a legitimate conundrum: Am I really crazy enough to weld brackets into a five week old car that I haven’t even found the ECU to disconnect yet? Fortunately, the answer is no. After more cogitation I decided that rivets and epoxy were a sufficient substitute in this application. The upper bracket only reinforces the plastic inner quarter panel. No real loading. The lower bracket is the pivot for the seatback, so there *is* some loading on it. But it’s also supported in two other places, there’s A LOT of surface area for epoxy, *and* it’s practically keyed to the panel:

So that’s the hard part. The “easy” part was spending two days actually doing it. And I decided half way though doing my car I was going to get the carpet too, because I completely forgot to mention THAT before: The carpet is different as well. And his carpet was thoroughly infused with what appeared to be wolf hair, so that wasn’t going in my car. While I had essentially the entire interior out of my car, I figured a little Kilmat in the very rear wouldn’t hurt either:

(Yeah, that's one month old truck..)

Which finally brings us to reassembly. I also got Canvasback liners because they’re a requirement, duh. And, man, it came out SO NICE. All the fits and finishes are a perfect match to stock and the seats fold up and down without any binding:

And Greg’s car was no disappointment either, but I’m pretty self-involved so I only took a couple shots of it:

And that’s my story. The moral? DON’T FCUKING DO THIS, unless you have serious desire for a little less weight and extra storage space, a little more money than common sense, and a real need to brag that you have the only "correct" 2 row Nightshade in existence.

Your mileage may vary. Four out of five dentists agree. The author assumes no culpability if you decide to undertake this foolishness on your own. But I will give you any and all part numbers to order if you do...

Josh

 

[Dr. Monkeypants]

Our work area:

 

[SlickTRD]

I’m never going to attempt this but it’s posts like this that makes me enjoy this community so much.

 

[JAXJeremy]

talk about a s**t ton of work..kudos for you taking it on...

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Really impressive work, you're only the second person I've seen attempt and successfully do this swap. Curious where you sourced the JBL panel from?

 

[slider76]

holy cow

nothing else. just wanted to say holy cow. i've a third row that at some point i think i may want to delete, but now i'm rethinking my life choices.

That looks great, btw.

 

[93civEJ1]

Im really confused what you gain by deleting the third row? Cant you always just leave them down and pretend they dont exist??

 

[redneckcrawler]

Im really confused what you gain by deleting the third row? Cant you always just leave them down and pretend they dont exist??

While this is a completely valid question, it does not apply to the op. I know people like him. He and his kind are like the scientists from Jurassic Park. Good friend of mine took a brand new Pathfinder and swapped out the rear suspension for a solid axle and redid the fronts with Titan uppers and lowers. Why? Because he wanted to run 37s. These are the madmen that make the world go round.

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Im really confused what you gain by deleting the third row? Cant you always just leave them down and pretend they dont exist??

You can... However the third row takes a lot of space in the rear, especially vertical space. I have a third row and pretend it's not there, but it does annoy me that I lose so much cargo space

 

[Dr. Monkeypants]

Really impressive work, you're only the second person I've seen attempt and successfully do this swap. Curious where you sourced the JBL panel from?

Thanks! I ordered the inner quarter panel from the dealer. There’s four variants for the right side: 2 row, 2 row JBL, 3 row, and 3 row JBL.

 

[Dr. Monkeypants]

He and his kind are like the scientists from Jurassic Park.

Haaaaaaahahahahaha, thanks! Hopefully, my creations are a bit less murdery. But otherwise, spot on. Would love to see that pathfinder.

 

[redneckcrawler]

Haaaaaaahahahahaha, thanks! Hopefully, my creations are a bit less murdery. But otherwise, spot on. Would love to see that pathfinder.

Here you go

 

[Dr. Monkeypants]

Here you go

Oh man. I LOVE that.

 

[93civEJ1]

You can... However the third row takes a lot of space in the rear, especially vertical space. I have a third row and pretend it's not there, but it does annoy me that I lose so much cargo space

I guess I wouldnt know really since ive never seen the two to compare. Is the only difference is that the seat backs on the second row fold flatter because they fold on top of the bottoms, where as the two row bottoms fold up so the backs fold flatter?

 

[MeefZah]

Impressive.

Cool Pathy too.

 

[97BlackAckCL]

I guess I wouldnt know really since ive never seen the two to compare. Is the only difference is that the seat backs on the second row fold flatter because they fold on top of the bottoms, where as the two row bottoms fold up so the backs fold flatter?

That's part of it yes, but the third row seats also add about 4" of wasted space, someone posted a side by side comparison somewhere I'll see if I can find it

 

[Dr. Monkeypants]

I guess I wouldnt know really since ive never seen the two to compare. Is the only difference is that the seat backs on the second row fold flatter because they fold on top of the bottoms, where as the two row bottoms fold up so the backs fold flatter?

I previously had a '15 Trail with the sliding cargo tray. Even with the tray, the difference in load height was noticeably lower than the 3 row truck. The extra interior space is a big deal for me because I prefer to load the interior instead of the roof or hitch when I travel as I'll spend a day or more away from the car hiking or on the bike. I also use it for work and a lower load height counts for A LOT when you're shambling around in a half century old carcass like me.

And yeah, on the 3 row cars the rear seat backs just fold onto the seat bottoms, leaving a more flatter-ish, but 4-5" higher cargo area. On the 2 row cars, you lose a little bit of length from having to fold the seat bottoms forward, but it's much lower.

 

[Dr. Monkeypants]

That's part of it yes, but the third row seats also add about 4" of wasted space, someone posted a side by side comparison somewhere I'll see if I can find it

Edit: Here’s pics from the original post

With 3rd:

Without:

It doesn’t seem like much in the pictures, but it’s fairly significant in person.

 

[ZiggyMoon]

Our work area:

Dude I'm so glad I found this post sooner than later..

My saying is "anything can be done with enough effort or enough money". Coming from a tacoma background full build (Tacomaworld) I was looking forward to doing this to my wife's 2016 runner we just got yesterday. Already planning out a few things for it but this would be for the kiddos and their friends. Signed up to stay on the up and up of her truck. 20 mins into this forum found this thread. You just showed me this mod went right to the bottom of the list! I have way to much wants/needs/free time to do right now than to have "fun" doing this.. It was a pleasure to read, Thanx dude! saved for future attempt.