Removing factory seat and installing Tillet B10-tips and tricks

Alan28

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Hi folks. Just replaced my drivers seat with a Tillet B10 from Greg’s Race Parts and I love the lower seating position and better ergonomics of the Tillet.

Some have asked for details of the install so I thought I would share them here.

Factory seat removal:
Slide the seat back far enough to loosen/remove the bolts holding down the front of each rail. T45 torx

Slide the seat forward far enough to loosen/remove the rear bolts.

Angle the back of the seat all the way forward/upright. This should allow you enough space to tip the entire seat backwards so you can access the wiring harness connections.

At this point I disconnected the battery. You can probably do this with the battery connected, but I didn’t want to risk accidentally triggering an airbag fault (this can happen if you turn on the ignition and the airbag harness is disconnected).

The wiring harness is zip tied to the floor. Cut the zip tie to give yourself some leeway with the harness.

The two electrical connections are located under the carpet. There is a pre-cut rectangle of carpet that you can lift up to access the connections.

If you bought the GRP airbag/seatbelt delete set it will be easy to see how the connectors go together and come apart.

IMG_1799.jpeg

The yellow connector is held to the floor by a standard, press fit, plastic fitting. You can see it attached to the side of the connector in the photo above.

After disconnecting the two connectors, you need to unscrew the seatbelt anchored to the outside edge of the seat.

Remove the plastic cover on the side of the seat. There are three, press-fit tabs horizontally across the cover. After gently pulling these out (just gently rock the cover while pulling outwards along the bottom), the cover lifts up and over two tabs located on the top edge.

In the first photo, you can see two of the rectangular slots that the press fit tabs slide into and you can see one of the tabs on top (near the middle of the seat) that you have to lift the cover up and over. In the second photo, you can see two rectangular slots (the middle one is the same one seen in the first photo) and you can see the rearward tab on top (alongside the back of the seat)

IMG_1787.jpeg

IMG_1788.jpeg

Once you remove the cover you can unscrew the bolt holding the seatbelt to the seat.

Now your seat is completely free and you can remove it from your car. I draped a moving blanket over the door sill to protect my car from any scratches. Other than being heavy, the seat is pretty easy to wrangle out of the car. I did raise my steering column up and in as far as I could to create more space.

At this point, I plugged in the two connectors in the GRP airbag delete kit and reconnected my battery.

You also need to remove the seatbelt receiver from the inboard side of the seat. There is an electrical connection (it tells the car when there is a seatbelt plugged into the receptacle) that you need to remove. To access the connector, there is a long plastic “U” channel along the inside of the seat fabric that you can easily remove by pulling the upholstery down and away from the side of the seat
IMG_1794.jpeg
IMG_1803.jpeg



IMG_1792.jpeg


After disconnecting the green connector, unbolt the seatbelt receiver from the seat.

Installing the Tillet B10

Assembly of the Tillet seat rail kit is straightforward so I won’t cover it in detail. I will mention a few things that are helpful to know in retrospect.

The Tillet seat uses different bolts to mount the seatbelt and seatbelt receptacle. The factory bolts are held in place with tight fitting washers that are designed to spin in place rather than screw off (see photo). I tried to gently pry them up while unscrewing the bolt but ultimately ended up pulling them off with pliers. If I ever decide to reinstall the factory seat, I likely will just have to buy new washers.

IMG_1807.jpeg



The Tillet seat rails require “extension arms” to reach the front mounting points in the car. Be sure to bolt them to the correct side of the seat rails (the flat side, not the side with a “u” shaped contour)

Attach the seat rail crossbar (the bar you pull up on to slide the seat), before installing the side plates (that the seat bolts to). If you don’t do it in this order, you won’t be able to attach it later as part of the side plates will interfere.

Attaching the side plates to the seat rails requires you to slide the rails back to access the front mounting holes and then forward to access the rear mounting holes.

The B10 seat comes with 30mm mounting bolts, but it really needs 50mm bolts because you will end up using all of the included spacers in the seat kit to fill the space between the side plates and the seat. A quick trip to the hardware store solved this issue. I messaged GRP and Greg is now aware of this issue. He even offered to ship me the bolts, but they were only $10 (for four) at my local hardware store (class 12.9)


IMG_1809.jpeg

Here is a photo of the spacers used between the mounting plate and the seat. Also note that although the seatbelt was originally mounted directly under the bolt that holds it in place, I mounted it more inboard between two parallel surfaces of the seat mounting plate. There is a spring supplied by Tillet that holds it in place and keeps it from rattling while still allowing it to rotate freely.

I’m 5’8 and set the seat in the rear second hole from the top and in the front 3rd hole from the top. So far, so good. Feel free to DM me with any questions

Here is a photo of the installed seat

IMG_1808.jpeg



waiting for the seat pads to be shipped from Tillet
 

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Great to read your well written information Alan. It's great to see the feedback. We recently started shipping the seats with a new longer 35mm 14.9 high strength M8 bolt, which should be long enough for the spacers required on a standard B10, but you have got me worried now. I will check tomorrow.
I've been waiting on a new set of panels myself. I changed the foam spec slightly after testing and they keep pushing my new set back to make them for customers. I come last.
 
  • Thread Starter
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  • #6
Great to read your well written information Alan. It's great to see the feedback. We recently started shipping the seats with a new longer 35mm 14.9 high strength M8 bolt, which should be long enough for the spacers required on a standard B10, but you have got me worried now. I will check tomorrow.
I've been waiting on a new set of panels myself. I changed the foam spec slightly after testing and they keep pushing my new set back to make them for customers. I come last.
Thanks @Steve Tillett ! 35mm may be perfect but my local hardware store only had 40mm or 50mm. Since the 50mm fit, I just went with them. Sorry to bump your place in line for pads. If it helps, I’m in no huge rush to get pads so feel free to get yours before me (if there is a logistical way to make that happen)
 
I was only joking, I have got panels already so customer orders must come first.
 
Hi folks. Just replaced my drivers seat with a Tillet B10 from Greg’s Race Parts and I love the lower seating position and better ergonomics of the Tillet.

Some have asked for details of the install so I thought I would share them here.

Factory seat removal:
Slide the seat back far enough to loosen/remove the bolts holding down the front of each rail. T45 torx

Slide the seat forward far enough to loosen/remove the rear bolts.

Angle the back of the seat all the way forward/upright. This should allow you enough space to tip the entire seat backwards so you can access the wiring harness connections.

At this point I disconnected the battery. You can probably do this with the battery connected, but I didn’t want to risk accidentally triggering an airbag fault (this can happen if you turn on the ignition and the airbag harness is disconnected).

The wiring harness is zip tied to the floor. Cut the zip tie to give yourself some leeway with the harness.

The two electrical connections are located under the carpet. There is a pre-cut rectangle of carpet that you can lift up to access the connections.

If you bought the GRP airbag/seatbelt delete set it will be easy to see how the connectors go together and come apart.

View attachment 50668
The yellow connector is held to the floor by a standard, press fit, plastic fitting. You can see it attached to the side of the connector in the photo above.

After disconnecting the two connectors, you need to unscrew the seatbelt anchored to the outside edge of the seat.

Remove the plastic cover on the side of the seat. There are three, press-fit tabs horizontally across the cover. After gently pulling these out (just gently rock the cover while pulling outwards along the bottom), the cover lifts up and over two tabs located on the top edge.

In the first photo, you can see two of the rectangular slots that the press fit tabs slide into and you can see one of the tabs on top (near the middle of the seat) that you have to lift the cover up and over. In the second photo, you can see two rectangular slots (the middle one is the same one seen in the first photo) and you can see the rearward tab on top (alongside the back of the seat)

View attachment 50669
View attachment 50670
Once you remove the cover you can unscrew the bolt holding the seatbelt to the seat.

Now your seat is completely free and you can remove it from your car. I draped a moving blanket over the door sill to protect my car from any scratches. Other than being heavy, the seat is pretty easy to wrangle out of the car. I did raise my steering column up and in as far as I could to create more space.

At this point, I plugged in the two connectors in the GRP airbag delete kit and reconnected my battery.

You also need to remove the seatbelt receiver from the inboard side of the seat. There is an electrical connection (it tells the car when there is a seatbelt plugged into the receptacle) that you need to remove. To access the connector, there is a long plastic “U” channel along the inside of the seat fabric that you can easily remove by pulling the upholstery down and away from the side of the seatView attachment 50671View attachment 50672


View attachment 50673

After disconnecting the green connector, unbolt the seatbelt receiver from the seat.

Installing the Tillet B10

Assembly of the Tillet seat rail kit is straightforward so I won’t cover it in detail. I will mention a few things that are helpful to know in retrospect.

The Tillet seat uses different bolts to mount the seatbelt and seatbelt receptacle. The factory bolts are held in place with tight fitting washers that are designed to spin in place rather than screw off (see photo). I tried to gently pry them up while unscrewing the bolt but ultimately ended up pulling them off with pliers. If I ever decide to reinstall the factory seat, I likely will just have to buy new washers.

View attachment 50674


The Tillet seat rails require “extension arms” to reach the front mounting points in the car. Be sure to bolt them to the correct side of the seat rails (the flat side, not the side with a “u” shaped contour)

Attach the seat rail crossbar (the bar you pull up on to slide the seat), before installing the side plates (that the seat bolts to). If you don’t do it in this order, you won’t be able to attach it later as part of the side plates will interfere.

Attaching the side plates to the seat rails requires you to slide the rails back to access the front mounting holes and then forward to access the rear mounting holes.

The B10 seat comes with 30mm mounting bolts, but it really needs 50mm bolts because you will end up using all of the included spacers in the seat kit to fill the space between the side plates and the seat. A quick trip to the hardware store solved this issue. I messaged GRP and Greg is now aware of this issue. He even offered to ship me the bolts, but they were only $10 (for four) at my local hardware store (class 12.9)


View attachment 50715
Here is a photo of the spacers used between the mounting plate and the seat. Also note that although the seatbelt was originally mounted directly under the bolt that holds it in place, I mounted it more inboard between two parallel surfaces of the seat mounting plate. There is a spring supplied by Tillet that holds it in place and keeps it from rattling while still allowing it to rotate freely.

I’m 5’8 and set the seat in the rear second hole from the top and in the front 3rd hole from the top. So far, so good. Feel free to DM me with any questions

Here is a photo of the installed seat

View attachment 50714


waiting for the seat pads to be shipped from Tillet
Nice write up. Did you only have the driver side by pass kit from GRP? What happens with the passenger side if there is no kit connected? I am assuming it’s just the warning light at startup
 
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Great post!

How do you find the comfort without the pads? Livable?
 
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Nice write up. Did you only have the driver side by pass kit from GRP? What happens with the passenger side if there is no kit connected? I am assuming it’s just the warning light at startup
I only did the drivers side. I don’t know if GRP ever found a solution for the passenger seat. I think the complexity is that the passenger seat airbag has an extra sensor to detect if someone is sitting in the seat (if so, the airbag is active). @GRP might want to chime in on this.
 
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Great post!

How do you find the comfort without the pads? Livable?
Thanks @Porter ! Not having pads wasn’t bad at first, but any drive more than 60 min started to get irritating with the bony parts of my shoulder blades hurting. Nothing terrible, but definitely noticeable.

Fortunately, my set of pads from Tillet arrived last night and they are SO WORTH IT! Not only does the thin pad eliminate the pressure points, the extra grippiness of the alcantera holds me in the seat so much better.

For anyone thinking of getting a bare seat, I say spend the extra $$ and get the pads (unless this is only going to be your track car and you are spending 20 min at a time in the seat). Shout out to Tillet for making and excellent product, sorting out the seat bracket issues, and for superb fit and finish on the pads
 

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I missed this write up previously Alan, thanks for doing it!
We tried about every trick we could think of with the passenger side with no luck so I have resorted to getting some oem parts from Lotus to make a different sort of kit but Lotus has the items all on backorder currently!
So playing the waiting game on those currently.
 
This write up is so detailed.. Thank you.. I am debating (still) getting the Tillet seats but def love my white interior and wouldn't want to lose that... so I am dealing with the back pain.. My seats have NOT gotten any better after 3200 miles of driving it..

Ryan G
 
This write up is so detailed.. Thank you.. I am debating (still) getting the Tillet seats but def love my white interior and wouldn't want to lose that... so I am dealing with the back pain.. My seats have NOT gotten any better after 3200 miles of driving it..

Ryan G
I don’t think we have done a white set of B10’s for the Emira yet. But I’m sure if you asked, we could do. We have done a couple of sets with the tan.
Maybe have white stitching and a white back to the seat.
 
I don’t think we have done a white set of B10’s for the Emira yet. But I’m sure if you asked, we could do. We have done a couple of sets with the tan.
Maybe have white stitching and a white back to the seat.
Any pics of the Tan seats @Steve Tillett ?
 
I don’t think we have done a white set of B10’s for the Emira yet. But I’m sure if you asked, we could do. We have done a couple of sets with the tan.
Maybe have white stitching and a white back to the seat.
if you ever do a white set, please let me know.. I would love to see it!
 
if you ever do a white set, please let me know.. I would love to see it!
We could always do something like this
A White leather stripe and stitching, then it would not matter if the white was not perfect shade.
We did look at getting the actual Bridge of Weir leather but it’s not a consistent supply. Here one minute gone the next, Therefore it’s hard to sell products on the basis of colours that may go out of stock next week. The tan is easy to match with a standard colour.
1730740323768.jpeg
 

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