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I recently found out about a very cool new product being offered exclusively by AFM Enterprises, Inc called Twinseats. Twinseats is a split rear seat for your Jeep Wrangler TJ. Twinseats takes your stock OEM TJ rear seat and creates a 50/50 rear seat out of it. It’s a great idea that allows you to remove one of the seats to make room for more cargo while still having the ability to seat one person in the rear. Since both of my kids don’t always ride with me, this was a perfect solution, since it allows one of my kids to ride safely in the rear seat and I still have enough room for plenty more cargo like a 48 quart cooler and more. I contacted Brett Burnett at AFM Enterprises, Inc to inquire about getting my rear fold-and-tumble seat converted. He was very excited about the prospect of a Twinseats conversion going into the Mad Cow. He sent me a shipping label and asked me to package up the seat in cardboard to protect it during shipping. I happened to have a large piece of cardboard in my garage so I took the seat out, which in one piece is not very light and proceeded to wrap it up in the cardboard. Keep in mind that your seat will be converted and returned to you, so package it well.
I then applied the shipping label and took the seat to a local FedEx office and off it went. As you can see, it is a very large package to deal with in one piece. It takes about ten days or so to get your seat converted and sent back to you, so plan to be without any seat for that timeframe. Twinseats cuts the seat in half, reinforces the ends and reupholsters it to match your existing material. When it arrived, there was only one box but it contained both seats and all the necessary hardware to install them.
I took the seats out of the box and they looked like factory OEM seats. The material was an exact match and was sewn nicely. The box also contained instructions with pictures to help you install the seats. Installation is very straightforward, so anyone with a drill and wrench can pretty much tackle the task (1 Banana scale). Place the T-shaped bracket supplied by Twinseats under the front to pick up the two center pins. You will have to push each seat outward and then slide the T-bracket in between them. After you get it exactly the way you want, mark through the holes in the T-bracket on the floor with a marker. Then remove the seats and bracket to make room for drilling the holes through the floor. After drilling, reinstall the T-bracket first and bolt it down properly per the instructions using the Twinseats-supplied fasteners. Now reinstall the carpeting over the bracket. You will have to make a small incision in the carpet to allow the T-bracket to stick through. Now reinstall each seat. The key to keeping the seats fitting properly in the T-bracket is to use the factory clips on the outside pins to prevent the seat from moving outward and the inner pins from falling out of the T-bracket. This is important, as my factory fold-and-tumble rear seat didn’t have the factory clips so I had to contact Brett Burnett at AFM Enterprises, Inc to see why the inner pins of the Twinseats wouldn’t stay in the T-bracket. He immediately got in contact with Clay Barnes at Twinseats and they both responded immediately to my email. Clay even sent photos of what the missing clips looked like and how they are installed. It was very satisfying to get great customer service from both of them - especially in a time when that doesn’t happen very often, anymore.
Now my installation was complete, so I had my kids jump in and they thought it was cool to have their own individual seat. In my particular case, I couldn’t fold and tumble the seat forward and leg room for the rear passengers was limited to 7 year old-sized legs, due to the custom roll cage harness bar behind the front row for mounting harnesses, so I “tweaked” the installation a “little.” I decided that since it was difficult for my kids to access the second row from the front with that harness bar in the way, that I would flip the seats around so they faced rearward. It was a lot more work than the regular install but my kids love it. They think it’s so cool to look backwards down the road while driving and they now have much easier access to the rear seats. They can get to them via the rear door when the soft top is up or they just climb up the sides when the soft top is down. Plus, it may even be safer for them in the event of a front-end collision since their heads and backs would be supported by the seats.
As an additional safety measure, I took advantage of the harness bar behind the front row and now behind the rear row, as well, and used it to mount the same 4-point harnesses I have for the front seats. Now my kids or anyone riding in the rear would have the same protection and harnessing that the front seaters have. The cherry on top was the cool booster seats I picked up that had provisions for dual shoulder harnesses and the height of the harnesses and head support was adjustable. By removing both Twinseats, the cargo capacity jumps to over 47 cubic feet. To top it off, removing an individual Twinseat is much easier since it now weighs half of what the stock OEM one piece rear seat did. My kids and I all love the Twinseats. We think it’s one of those hot new products that we couldn’t live without now that we have them.
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Since the Mad Cow doesn’t have carpet, that was one less thing I had to remove for the installation. If you have carpet in the rear, you need to remove it first. Take one of the seats and attach the outer pin through the stock bracket. Then install the other seat the same way. Now you have both seats in but nothing supporting the center pins (added by Twinseats).
So now that it’s all finished up, I now have the ability to adjust my cargo space with my needs much better and still have a third or fourth passenger. By removing just one of the rear Twinseats, your cargo capacity goes from the stock 11.9 cubic feet to almost 30 cubic feet. You also nearly triple your cargo area and you can still carry two passengers.
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