This article was written by Tacomahq.com reader Jeff Fowler.

I am the proud owner of a 2006 Toyota Tacoma. This truck owes me nothing. But a couple of months ago my back starting getting sore after sitting in the truck for long periods of time. See, I have 170K miles on my five years young pickup, and I am in the seat for hours at a time. I removed the seat to find that the seat springs had broken on the upper part of the seat. I made new springs and hoped that would fix the problem — well it did not. So, I added some foam to the bottom part of the seat — that also did nothing to help my back. I decided to get a new seat.

Toyota wanted $2,200.00 for a new driver’s seat and you have to put it together, you cannot get an assembled seat. So, I searched the web and forums to find a seat to buy. I found good feedback on Corbeau. They not only make seats, but also make custom seat brackets for your specific vehicle. I bought a set of brackets and seats. I chose the TRS wide in black cloth. The installation was a bit involved, but that is another post. While reading Corbeau’s site I noticed they make office chairs out of some of the seats they sell for cars and trucks. I thought to myself — I could build that from my passenger seat! Since no one ever really sat in that seat it was in like new condition.

After the removal of my old seats and installation of the new seats I began work on the “Toyota Tacoma Desk Chair.” First, I removed the sensors for the air bag controls and the sub frame that attaches the seat to the floor. There are only four bolts that hold the seat to the sub frame, but you have to remove other hardware and brackets to get to them. Once that was completed I had to find a way to simply bolt a plate to the four seat mounting holes, so I could install the wheeled chair base to my Tacoma seat.

I used the following parts because they were free from my shop, but I am sure other parts would work. I used two angles 1/8’’ thick by 4’’ x 2’’ I think they were about 15’’ long. Then, I placed them inside the seat frame and marked the holes with a silver Sharpie. After drilling four 7/16’’ holes to match the seat frame holes I used 3/8’’ x 1 ½’’ grade five bolts to make the attachment. Then I used a metal plate which is 3/8’’ thick by 14’’ by 15’’. Again, I had this laying around at work. I centered the plate on the brackets I made. I then marked and drilled four 7/16’’ holes in the four corners of the plate. I marked their locations on the installed angles and then removed the angles from the seat and drilled the mounting plate holes in them. Now I had to locate and drill four holes to mount the wheeled base from a old office chair, the base was in good shape, but the chair was beat. I used the position of the base on the old chair as a guide for my new chair — don’t want to sit down and then flip over because the base was too far forward on the chair.

Now that all the heavy drilling was done it was now time to assemble the chair. I installed the angles and bolted them in, and then attached the wheeled base to the mounting plate. It would be almost impossible to mount the wheeled base after mounting the plate since there is very little space between the plate and the seat in the middle of the chair. Then I bolted the wheeled base and the mounting plate to the four holes in the angles already attached to the seat. Now I had a seat that rolled, tilted, swiveled, and reclined.

The fun part — getting the seat trim back onto the seat to hide the reclining release and the seat hinge. The seat hinge on the left (console side) was easy, I just had to drill a hole in the mounting angle so the plastic xmas tree would insert all the way in. The recliner release on the right side was interesting. I ended up using the trim from the console side of the driver’s seat to make a cover for the passenger seat. That way both trim pieces would look the same. You will have to modify it to make it work, since the left side does not have an adjustment arm, just a pivot. After some cutting filing and sanding smooth I got the look I was going for. They are not exactly the same but very close.

I have to say, it is the BEST office chair I have ever used! Plus, no other common office chair reclines or has an adjustable head rest. Now all I need is a 4X4, 4.0L desk.