Steel or Aluminium

[K9d]

Mine aren't heated, but I would have used a relay if they were.
I do have two of the 12v that draw 150w each, I plan to use these to help clear the screen of condensation and shall run them from the leisure battery I shall use a relay for these.

Only one of my new seats is electric, fortunately due to the location of the arm rests this seat will go on the left side, guess where the steering wheel is.

 

[mandrake]

always best nowadays . then you shure

 

[K9d]

I tested all the seat electrics with my booster pack but I just have seat movement, up/down, forwards/backwards, tilt the base, tilt the back and a lumber support.

The heated seat bit was in response the the post I quoted with that answer, whereby the poster has heated seats but hadn't wired them up for fear that they will be on permanently.

Sorry for any confusion caused.

I like arm rests, currently I have two and love them both folded down, cruise control on sit back and relax.

But I'm going to tell Kathy mine is heated just to make her jealous.

 

[Siimplyloco]

I love my ISRI armrests, but I do lower them a bit when it's windy because otherwise they wear holes in the elbows of my jumpers!
John

 

[piman]

Hello David,

"Why not get rid of the arm rests? They are only of use to the passenger. I find mine a real nuisance and always have them folded up."

I agree, but more strongly, I feel that they do not give full control of the vehicle, a bit like the elbow out of the window, thankfully not so common these days with air conditioning.

Alec

 

[K9d]

Hello David,

"Why not get rid of the arm rests? They are only of use to the passenger. I find mine a real nuisance and always have them folded up."

I agree, but more strongly, I feel that they do not give full control of the vehicle, a bit like the elbow out of the window, thankfully not so common these days with air conditioning.

Alec

I think your right about the elbow out the window, especially in an A class motorhome, unless your Mr Tickle

 

[GRWXJR]

I changed the seats and belts (the receiver us on the seat on my replacements).

I checked with an mot tester first as my passenger seat is mounted on unistrut. Basically if you use the reinforced seat and belt mounting points (i.e. dont drill new unbraced ones in the floorpan which could tear out) and you should have no bother.

Mot says you cant have any holes or corrosion within 30cm of a seat belt mounting point. So, if you have seat belt receivers on the seats as I now have, all the seat mounting points become considered as a seat belt mountig point from the perspective of the mot test.

My drivers seat was mounted onto the existing LDV seat base to ensure everything was lined up with the pedals etc. I had to make an adapter plate so that the LDV base could accept the Mitsubishi L200 sourced seat.

On the passenger side I was removing a 2 seat bench and fitting a single seat which was on runners taken from the doner Mitsubishi. Hence the unistrut to bolt across the floor side-to-side that I could then bolt the runner mounting tabs to using the spring channel nuts or "Zebedee's".

Theres some ropey pics on my "Sully the LDV Convoy" thread of the Unistrut mounting if the above doesnt make sense!

Hope this helps.

G.

 

[K9d]

The seat belts are going to be untouched.

I spent £4 on some 25mm timber today so that I could try out my mounting before committing to metal, I'm glad I did because it threw up a few issues, nothing major but much easier to deal with at this stage.
One of the issues is that the seat rails aren't the same height, 23mm difference, so when I test fitted the drivers seat it was leaning towards the outside of the van. Fortunately it is an easy fix with a 25mm box section welded on top of the planned rails, this means there will be a slight lean the other way but not enough to worry about.

View attachment 27334

The other side will be the same but the measurements are slightly different.

Whilst I have the seat out I took the opportunity to add soundproofing and clean up under the seat.

 

[K9d]

Washers are a good idea, sometimes it just needs a fresh pair of eyes.

View attachment 27335

Is that better.

 

[K9d]

I changed the seats and belts (the receiver us on the seat on my replacements).

I checked with an mot tester first as my passenger seat is mounted on unistrut. Basically if you use the reinforced seat and belt mounting points (i.e. dont drill new unbraced ones in the floorpan which could tear out) and you should have no bother.

Mot says you cant have any holes or corrosion within 30cm of a seat belt mounting point. So, if you have seat belt receivers on the seats as I now have, all the seat mounting points become considered as a seat belt mountig point from the perspective of the mot test.

My drivers seat was mounted onto the existing LDV seat base to ensure everything was lined up with the pedals etc. I had to make an adapter plate so that the LDV base could accept the Mitsubishi L200 sourced seat.

On the passenger side I was removing a 2 seat bench and fitting a single seat which was on runners taken from the doner Mitsubishi. Hence the unistrut to bolt across the floor side-to-side that I could then bolt the runner mounting tabs to using the spring channel nuts or "Zebedee's".

Theres some ropey pics on my "Sully the LDV Convoy" thread of the Unistrut mounting if the above doesnt make sense!

Hope this helps.

G.

A picture speaks a thousand words, I've just found your pictures and now it makes sense.
Now I'm trying to see if it would work for me, I think it will, there will be less need to drill holes which is a good thing.

 

[antiqueman]

Awesome. Boy's similar - sat playing mastermind in the pub with a seven year old can only make you proud

He has his moments, but to be fair it's only when he's ill/hungry/proper tired.

There's nothing I wouldn't take him to.

brothel oops I am amazed how threads move on here but its good who mentioned seats?

 

[st3v3]

brothel oops I am amazed how threads move on here but its good who mentioned seats?

Lol. Maybe we should be called the tangent forum.

 

[K9d]

We need to be careful or Professor PissyPants will be along complaining that certain posts are not sticking to the guidelines, she's got degrees in cooking and colouring in so be careful.

 

[K9d]

Just been test fitting the passenger seat and I'm glad I did, because its slightly wider than the existing seat it won't swivel if I put it in the centre, but moving it inboard by 20mm will be enough clearance.
I've also noticed a potential issue with the drivers seat, but a slight redesign will avoid any problems

I've started cleaning the seats and can't believe how dirty they were, I thought they were a dark grey leather but it seems not

View attachment 27371

 

[GRWXJR]

Just been test fitting the passenger seat and I'm glad I did, because its slightly wider than the existing seat it won't swivel if I put it in the centre, but moving it inboard by 20mm will be enough clearance.
I've also noticed a potential issue with the drivers seat, but a slight redesign will avoid any problems

I've started cleaning the seats and can't believe how dirty they were, I thought they were a dark grey leather but it seems not

View attachment 27371

I found similar issues. The Unistrut helped there for the passenger seat as I could just slide it in toward the centre a bit (plus as I shortened but retained the original runners I have the luxury of it moving fore and aft as well, like the drivers seat does).

The drivers seat though fouls the drivers door and is a tight squeeze to get it to rotate 90 degrees (it can't go further around cos the steering wheel gets in the way of the backrest, and of course moving it out of line with the pedals ain't an option). I can make it easier to rotate by removing the RH armrest, but I like using the armrest when on the M-way so I've decided put up with it being a tad tight when I want to turn it.

The only bit thats a bit of a loss is that when I binned the original (horrible and hard as a brick) LDV Drivers seat I had to sacrifice the height adjustment feature. As it is its ok for me, but I think a very tall driver would have liked the option to drop the seat a bit lower for better visibility.

 

[K9d]

Fortunately I will retain all the functions of the seats, because I'm bolting them onto the turntables as they are, the passenger seat only has forward/backwards movement and back tilt, which is the same as the old seat. The drivers seat has loads of adjustments, but the same as you will only swing through 90 degrees due to the steering wheel getting in the way it is the same with the existing seat so no loss.

 

[K9d]

I'm not sure what the previous owner did for a living but I've never seen seats that dirty, fortunately Gliptone leather cleaner makes short work of the dirt
The seats are from a Kia, I'm guessing Sedona, so I've ordered some colour restorer to bring the worn areas back up to colour.

 

[K9d]

After making templates in wood and this highlighting a few issues, which are easy to avoid, I have decided steel is the way to go.
I got my local fabricators to cut all the lengths I require, I've borrowed a pillar drill from my dad and will be getting a guy at work to do the welding that's needed.
Hopefully by next weekend the new seats will be in place, all cleaned up and the worn patches of dye repaired.

I'm also going to replace the hideous carpet that the last owner put in there and add some sound proofing.

I decided against Aluminium, partly on strength grounds but also welding would have been an issue.
The Unibar route was very tempting, but because of the 23mm height difference between the seat rails it would have got messy, without that issue it seemed a brilliant solution.

 

[piman]

Hello K9D,

"I decided against Aluminium, partly on strength grounds but also welding would have been an issue."

There is no strength issue but if you couldn't fabricate it in aluminium why the question?

Alec

 

[K9d]

Hello K9D,

"I decided against Aluminium, partly on strength grounds but also welding would have been an issue."

There is no strength issue but if you couldn't fabricate it in aluminium why the question?

Alec

Because before I asked the question I didn't know that welding would be involved, plus I'm pretty sure Steel is stronger than aluminium size for size.
Plus I wanted to get the benefit of other peoples experience of similar projects, there are self builders and engineers on here who have more knowledge of these things than I do.

And to you why ask the question ?