I got an awesome deal on front seats for my 86 cougar.......as in free. they are manual adjusting seats from a mustang. the current seats in the cougar are no good and would be a small fortune to reupholster........but the motors are fine and everything adjusts properly. my question is (before i go taking everything apart) how much of a pain would it be to put the new seats on the old tracks in order to retain the electric adjustment functionality? if i do go with just manual seats, will it be a problem if i leave the wires alone and just cut & tape them to make sure they'll never short?
As you may or may not know, the Stang brackets wont fit a Tbird/Cougar floorpan, so you'll have to use yours car's brackets, other than that, everything is a bolt-up deal.
The 2 back holes on the seat that align with the corresponding holes on your brackets *may* need to be tapped to be able to get a bolt started..I had to tap the Motorsport seats I have to mate with Tbird brackets.
If you find or otherwise have the manual Tbird brackets, just leave the plug for the power seat(s) there, I wouldn't bother cutting anything, but just poke it through the hole in the carpet and be done with it, no need to cut any wiring.
Bolt the Mustang seats to your Cougar tracks and you're good to go.
You might need to modify or drill/tap a hole in the seats, but I doubt it. THe stock seats have provisions/locations for a couple different locations.
I've bolted many a stock Ford seat to Tbird/Cougar tracks though w/o issue.
You won't be able to use the manual tracks from a Mustang in a Tbird/COugar w/o some fab work though, as the floor pans are different. So unless you are able to dig up some manual tracks for a TBird, which are hard to find (the driver side specifically), just stay with the power tracks from the car and bolt your seats to them.