seat rail woes. my seat is a tripod! stupid rust. help?

[4x4RunnerSR5]

guys, what should i do? my seat was wiggly (just bought the car yesterday) so i took off the bolt for the seat rail and found this!

where the bolt from underneath holds the seat to the body, it's completely rusted out... how do i fix it? is there any way to get to that part from underneath so i can just put a big washer on it? or is there going to be welding involved?

 

[t4r4life]

this is really bad rust man i dont know how to tell you this except to just tie it down

 

[WrexHAmm]

I don't know about just tieing it down. Those bolts are there for a reason and a big guess would be safety. If you have the time you could always remove everything and then the carpet. Give you a chance to do a good cleaning too. Sand off the rust and shoot it will some paint to slow the rusting. At the sametime you might not like what you find. Figure out a way to get something to hold a thread in there.

 

[brian2sun]

Thru-bolt it right through the bottom of the body. Under that hump is the very bottom so you only have to drill through that ~1/8" metal. Use a big fender washer on the underside and it's a done deal.

 

[4x4RunnerSR5]

Thru-bolt it right through the bottom of the body. Under that hump is the very bottom so you only have to drill through that ~1/8" metal. Use a big fender washer on the underside and it's a done deal.

think this is going to have to happen. Then just hit it with some silicon.

 

[brian2sun]

Fix it soon, you will put stress on the other ones and the rocking movement of the seat will break all the welded nuts loose (ask me how I know, haha). You're lucky it's the one on the flat side. The other front one is on the hump and not so easy to thru-bolt so be careful when tightening that one. I left mine loose and rocking for too long and all the welded nuts broke off and were a total pain to deal with. Then hit it with silicone to prevent water/rust like you said.

 

[Nelsonmd]

I think it would be best to see if a shop somewhere can just tack on a big washer or something. Sandwiching it back in could cause it to loosen up since it is a combination of axial and shear loading.

It seems you should be able to get a piece tacked in there pretty easily, just remove the carpet, sand the pain off around it, have a nut tacked onto a washer, then have the washer tacked over the hole.

x2 on what Brian said. You can stress the other pretty bad by leaving it as is.

As far as safety, is the belt latch mounted to the seat, or the chassis? I know it is chassis on the door side, but I don't know about the center side. That back right bolt is probably the most important for keeping the seat and you in the car in an accident.