Sport mods

[alcapone]

hmm have to disagree there, not to moan as i love this thread and really envious of the great van you started with and the better van you've created but you definitely need a diagonal brace. Based on the two pics of your welds, I wouldn't trust my life with them and for the sake of a hour or twos work wouldn't you prefer not to kill your passenger? I was always told a pretty weld is a solid weld when i trained and yours look (albeit from a bad picture) a little uneven in places. Again not trying to be rude but would definitely vote for a diagonal brace.

OK "definitely" is a little much but it would be safer..

i'll not keep going on about this - i dont want to mess the thread up but...... a mk1 transit seat is only held in by 6mm bolts they dont need to be strong as the weight of your body in an accident is taken up by the seatbelt mounts - the seat frame and mounts only need to hold the weight of the seat it's self, modern seat frames are much more robust as oftern they have the seat belts mounted to them if that was the case it would need a diagonal

That's my view on it too... Especially as I used 25x25x2.5mm box and I'm fairly happy my welding is up to scratch - it may look uneven, but that's because I kept the 180 amps flowing to make sure it melts deeper than just sticking to the surface.

I have a part of the frame I made up to the wrong measurements (one of the rails on the BMW seat had been bent in transit*), I will see if I can find someone with a hydraulic press who can test how much force it takes to break a weld. Could be an interesting experiment, maybe I can get Myth Busters to have a go

* In transit, probably not a Transit, more likely by the handler...

[MrMPuk]

modern seat frames are much more robust as oftern they have the seat belts mounted to them if that was the case it would need a diagonal

Which of course this seat does!

[alcapone]

modern seat frames are much more robust as oftern they have the seat belts mounted to them if that was the case it would need a diagonal

Which of course this seat does!

One end only...

[m99abe]

My thoughts are get the wife well insured just in case, but threat those welds are tested to the hilt u prob dead anyway!!!! So go enjoy your van and it's comfy seats!!!!

[alcapone]

I have a photo which shows how the BMW seat is mounted to it's rails, showing each of the four links between the seat and the rails:



A - this is the thickest of the links at about 5mm. The reason it is thicker is because it has teeth on it to form part of the mechanism that adjusts the seat height.
B, C, & D - these links are about 3mm thick.

In A & C you can see how thin the nuts are, not offering much strength to side movement.

My frame is four 25x25x2.5mm steel (so a total of 5mm in each direction, though because it's a box the strength is in the the 25mm) legs. I feel I am capable of making a deeply penetrating weld on 2.5mm thick steel with a 180A MIG welder. I reckon my base is tougher than the seat.

A quick search of Ebay gives several seats with no diagonals - these seats must have been tested to be legal:

[m99abe]

Here here. What's next?

[alcapone]

Here here. What's next?

Could debate the rights and wrong of Afghanistan... but for my van it's more seats, I'm hoping to make a start on getting the Bongo seats/runners in today, but Ford were very inconsiderate when they put the chassis on my van, it's in the wrong bloody place!

[Sam_I_am]

ok ok ok lol i stand corrected

[noah]

bongo seats

[alcapone]

bongo seats

[alcapone]

Bongo seats - the most flexible way of adding seats to the back, but damned hard work! For those not familiar with the Bongo seats, do a quick search on Ebay, they are (or have been) readily available, but don't pay too much! I got a set for £102. Don't deal with someone called "denise5306" - he's a miserable git and after driving 50 miles to look at the seats he wouldn't budge on £175 for them, even though he sold a set on Ebay for £137 a few days before and wouldn't have to pay Ebay or Paypal fees. Fortunately for me, my principals won't let me deal with tossers and I ended up saving quite a few quid

The set consists of:

2 x rails
1 x split bench seat
1 x bench seat

Each seat can have three people sat on it, so with all in I will have the ability to carry 8 people. They also slide back and forward on the rails to adjust the position and if I slide them all the way back, I can take them out to give me the full cargo bay. Other nice things about these seats are that they fold flat to make a double bad (OK, it's a bloody lumpy bed, but I will probably have had more than a few when ever I use it so am unlikely to notice). The back rests can also fold all the way forward to take up less space. Each bench has a central arm rest for when carrying only two people on it.

What made them hard to fit most of the bolt holes being right over a chassis member! Lots of moving about and I finally got them mounted. The next problem I faced was they are about an inch high so I had to make a new floor lining. Because I had a couple of sheets I decided to use two layers of half inch chipboard. I would have rather used ply, but chipboard is so much cheaper and I don't expect it to be abused too much. I may do the central part (between the rails) with ply, or one layer of chipboard and the top layer with ply.







You will notice the rails aren't central, this was intended (I would have rather they were a few inches further to the right, but the wheel arch would have stopped them sliding out of the back). They have to be further right to allow access to the back bench, though the front bench being split helps.






This is one of the runners the seats bolt on to and shows just how flexible this system is - anything could be made to bolt to these runners, including a large speaker box, cooking facilities, a nicer bed...