Unfortunately, the short of it is that I don't have a really good answer, so the best I can offer is to share my experiences and frustrations. NB: My cars have all been pre-1990, which is the year in which the floorpans are said to have been changed, so any advice from me only applies directly to model years 1979 to 1989.
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Anywhoo.
The most convenient solution is obviously to get a set of Box fleet-package (mine is a P72) bucket seat assemblies and bolt them in. This works perfect for a four-door, and for a two-door the quick fix would be to leave out the bolt that secures the seatback so you can fold them forward. Unfortunately, the stupid things seem to be outrageously hard to get hold of. Probably somewhat related to reports that lots of agencies liked to rip them out in favor of split benches! And of course, if you already have a roadworthy P72, you probably want to keep those nice P72 buckets in your P72.
You can get a set of bucket seats from another vehicle. I have an ugly tweed set from a '96 Mustang. The problem? The seat-to-slider bolt pattern is about 1.5" narrower than your stock split bench! So, if you have a complete set of four manual split-bench sliders (full bench sliders were the same, I have one pair from each), you can drill extra slider-to-floor mounting holes about 3/4" outboard of the originals, and bolt your bucket seats right up. Of course, I noticed that this didn't let the seat go far enough backward, so I took advantage of the SN95 seats' extra rear mounting holes, drilled extra mounting holes in the front end of the slider tops, and used that to move the seats back a bit. Oh, and you'll want to use some spacers because the bench-seat sliders are curved and the bucket-seat frames aren't.
So, now you've got your bucket seats bolted into your Box-body, except that now your head scrapes the roof and the steering wheel is annoyingly low in your lap and it just feels all wrong. This is where I noticed something very interesting about the P72 bucket sliders - in addition to the slider-to-seat bolt pattern being basically the same as the Mustang seats, they're an inch or two shorter vertically than the bench sliders! Since I do own an '87 P72 with buckets, and got completely fed up with sitting too high after putting the SN95 seats in my '81 LTD, my quick fix was to steal one set of sliders from my P72. This makes for an acceptable driving position, and since my usual passengers are at most 5'2", it'll work OK for me for the time being.
But what if you don't like sitting too high and don't have access to P72 sliders? That's led me to search for other applications that may have used sliders that were the same as or similar to P72 manual sliders. The D8 part number I found on my P72 seats seems to suggest that the whole assembly may have been in use before Panthers were on the market. And since I've sat in and driven around the block in a '78 Mustang II King Cobra, I can recall that those seats were pretty doggone similar, except of course for the fact that they were designed from the factory to fold forward. Also, a handful of Panther fans seem to be of the opinion that P72 buckets assemblies were shared more or less with those from Fairmonts. So those might seem to make two possible models to steal seats and/or sliders from. And though I've not been in a bucket-seat Granada, Granada buckets appear to be more than a little similar to P72 buckets, so they might be a possibility as well.
Now, I have since discovered that Mustang IIs used the stud-affixed-to-the-slider method of attaching the slider to the floor, and an indulgent eBayer measured his mounting pattern and confirmed it to be both too short and too narrow for a Box Panther - 14" by 14" IIRC. However, staring at pictures has almost convinced me that if you cut off the studs and drill mounting holes, Mustang II sliders might be found to be functionally interchangable with P72 sliders. I unfortunately haven't yet contrived to measure a set in person.
As for getting sliders from a Fairmont, that at first seemed as though it might account for the weird fact of P72 sliders getting an extra set of mounting holes, each about 3/4" inboard of the ones actually used in the car. My only concrete info so far is from another eBayer who measured a Fairmont being prepared for the 24 Hours of Lemons who had just the seat back panels up for sale, which looked interchangeable with mine. However, he reported a slider-to-floor mounting pattern of 14-1/2" by 10-3/4", which is exactly the same as that of the SN95 sliders I already have in my possession. So unless some Fairmonts used very different floorpans from his, Fairmont sliders would appear to be no use at all.
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Of course, all this is no use at all if you want to use power sliders! My experiment with Box-Panther split bench power sliders from several years ago involved bolting a piece of 1/8" bar stock across each end of the top of the slider, and drilling extra holes in the seat frame, inboard of the factory holes, to attach the seat to the bar stock. One obvious problem with this is that it adds height to an assembly which, as with the manual split-bench sliders, really doesn't need extra height added to it. I may try another experiment to see whether it's practical to just drill extra seat-to-slider mounting holes, but that depends on there being sufficient material approx. 3/4" inboard of the originals.
My other obvious option for a power slider, would seem to involve very annoying modifications to the SN95 slider in my possession. Absolutely no clue at this point how easily that can be made to work except by someone with the "skillz" to just make split-bench manual sliders shorter in the first place. Which I may or may not have. Though, one user mentioned that he'd gained extra leg room on his completely stock seat assembly by just bolting bits of bar stock to the floor and attaching the stock slider to that. So maybe that could yet be a feasible way to adapt a wrong-bolt-pattern slider to the Box Panther floorpan. I may just have to try it and find out!
=================================================
Anywhoo.
The most convenient solution is obviously to get a set of Box fleet-package (mine is a P72) bucket seat assemblies and bolt them in. This works perfect for a four-door, and for a two-door the quick fix would be to leave out the bolt that secures the seatback so you can fold them forward. Unfortunately, the stupid things seem to be outrageously hard to get hold of. Probably somewhat related to reports that lots of agencies liked to rip them out in favor of split benches! And of course, if you already have a roadworthy P72, you probably want to keep those nice P72 buckets in your P72.
You can get a set of bucket seats from another vehicle. I have an ugly tweed set from a '96 Mustang. The problem? The seat-to-slider bolt pattern is about 1.5" narrower than your stock split bench! So, if you have a complete set of four manual split-bench sliders (full bench sliders were the same, I have one pair from each), you can drill extra slider-to-floor mounting holes about 3/4" outboard of the originals, and bolt your bucket seats right up. Of course, I noticed that this didn't let the seat go far enough backward, so I took advantage of the SN95 seats' extra rear mounting holes, drilled extra mounting holes in the front end of the slider tops, and used that to move the seats back a bit. Oh, and you'll want to use some spacers because the bench-seat sliders are curved and the bucket-seat frames aren't.
So, now you've got your bucket seats bolted into your Box-body, except that now your head scrapes the roof and the steering wheel is annoyingly low in your lap and it just feels all wrong. This is where I noticed something very interesting about the P72 bucket sliders - in addition to the slider-to-seat bolt pattern being basically the same as the Mustang seats, they're an inch or two shorter vertically than the bench sliders! Since I do own an '87 P72 with buckets, and got completely fed up with sitting too high after putting the SN95 seats in my '81 LTD, my quick fix was to steal one set of sliders from my P72. This makes for an acceptable driving position, and since my usual passengers are at most 5'2", it'll work OK for me for the time being.
But what if you don't like sitting too high and don't have access to P72 sliders? That's led me to search for other applications that may have used sliders that were the same as or similar to P72 manual sliders. The D8 part number I found on my P72 seats seems to suggest that the whole assembly may have been in use before Panthers were on the market. And since I've sat in and driven around the block in a '78 Mustang II King Cobra, I can recall that those seats were pretty doggone similar, except of course for the fact that they were designed from the factory to fold forward. Also, a handful of Panther fans seem to be of the opinion that P72 buckets assemblies were shared more or less with those from Fairmonts. So those might seem to make two possible models to steal seats and/or sliders from. And though I've not been in a bucket-seat Granada, Granada buckets appear to be more than a little similar to P72 buckets, so they might be a possibility as well.
Now, I have since discovered that Mustang IIs used the stud-affixed-to-the-slider method of attaching the slider to the floor, and an indulgent eBayer measured his mounting pattern and confirmed it to be both too short and too narrow for a Box Panther - 14" by 14" IIRC. However, staring at pictures has almost convinced me that if you cut off the studs and drill mounting holes, Mustang II sliders might be found to be functionally interchangable with P72 sliders. I unfortunately haven't yet contrived to measure a set in person.
As for getting sliders from a Fairmont, that at first seemed as though it might account for the weird fact of P72 sliders getting an extra set of mounting holes, each about 3/4" inboard of the ones actually used in the car. My only concrete info so far is from another eBayer who measured a Fairmont being prepared for the 24 Hours of Lemons who had just the seat back panels up for sale, which looked interchangeable with mine. However, he reported a slider-to-floor mounting pattern of 14-1/2" by 10-3/4", which is exactly the same as that of the SN95 sliders I already have in my possession. So unless some Fairmonts used very different floorpans from his, Fairmont sliders would appear to be no use at all.
========================================
Of course, all this is no use at all if you want to use power sliders! My experiment with Box-Panther split bench power sliders from several years ago involved bolting a piece of 1/8" bar stock across each end of the top of the slider, and drilling extra holes in the seat frame, inboard of the factory holes, to attach the seat to the bar stock. One obvious problem with this is that it adds height to an assembly which, as with the manual split-bench sliders, really doesn't need extra height added to it. I may try another experiment to see whether it's practical to just drill extra seat-to-slider mounting holes, but that depends on there being sufficient material approx. 3/4" inboard of the originals.
My other obvious option for a power slider, would seem to involve very annoying modifications to the SN95 slider in my possession. Absolutely no clue at this point how easily that can be made to work except by someone with the "skillz" to just make split-bench manual sliders shorter in the first place. Which I may or may not have. Though, one user mentioned that he'd gained extra leg room on his completely stock seat assembly by just bolting bits of bar stock to the floor and attaching the stock slider to that. So maybe that could yet be a feasible way to adapt a wrong-bolt-pattern slider to the Box Panther floorpan. I may just have to try it and find out!
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