Hapy Seating (Part 2)

When the nice weather (read:camping weather) got behind us, I pulled Hapy off the road to swap out the seats. That was before we got a puppy and my wife changed jobs. I have been doing bus-related things when the rare opportunity presented itself, of course, but these seats just were not getting my attention. I have finally gotten these seats installed. So, today, I will wrap this up.

Out With The Old

Sprinter seats

Recall, we removed GratefulEd's donor seats and stowed them safely in my garage. They will go back to him as soon as these new seats are confirmed viable. The stock passenger seat is held in by a hook-loop between the seatback and the steel partition, and a pair of C-shaped mounts that point up. The seat was designed to remove quickly so you can access the tire jack usually stored beneath. You lift up on the front of the seat, folding it slightly, the hook on the rear slides out of the loop, allowing the seat to be lifted straight up. Pretty clever. The driver seat rides on 2 slides, and is held in place with a more modern toothed rail concept. Like a modern seat, the adjuster unlocks by lifting on a bar under the driver's right leg and then the seat can move front to back. If the bar is lifted and the seat is slid all the way forward, it slides right off the channels. Easy-peasy.

With the stock-ish seats out, we can consider the install of the new seats. In the 2016 Sprinter, these seats are mounted with M10 grade 10.9 (or grade 8 in SAE measures) bolts/nuts. Unable to source these at the local Ace, I had to patronize the Home Despot for fasteners. Moments like this I miss Orchards; their fastener department was massive, well stocked, clearly marked and there was room for multiple shoppers. Anyway, I mentioned in the last post that the "C" mounts for the passenger seat blocked a clean mock up of the new seat on that side. On Hapy, the inner mount was held on with 2 small (10mm head) bolts. The outer mount was welded on (presumably by a PO). So, I removed that one with my angle grinder, a hacksaw and a hammer/chisel. I generally do not like cutting original parts off the bus, but I am fairly sure the outer hook was supposed to be bolted in like the inner hook was, and a prior owner performed a repair or "improvement". I'm going with repair. The loop on the partition is held on with 2 more 10mm bolts. All of these parts dropped into a zip-lock baggie to be misplaced for the foreseeable future in my disaster of a garage. I'm not kidding; I have already lost track of this baggie.

While We're Here

Three of the most dangerous words when it comes to projects are "while we're here". Still, there are times when it makes sense to do something while you are there and things are exposed. For example, you need to remove the air cleaner to get to your spark plugs, so you replace the filter during the out-then-in. That didn't really increase the scope, and you were touching it anyway. In this case, I have very little interest in removing these seats again once they are in, but I know they will be out and back in again. Resisting the urge to do more, there are a few things worth doing while your seats are out. After pulling out the old passenger seat mounts, I spent a little time improving that seat pedestal. I cleaned up all the dust, debris and spent horsehair. I hit some surface rust with rust converter and then topped that with some spray paint. I do not have carpet yet, and I don't want to put the old pedestal wrap carpet (basically trunk carpet) back on. So, yeah, these seats will be coming back out for a carpet install. I hope to install that carpet before Summer travels begin, but it could just as easily happen years from now, which is why I did the rust-treat and paint.

 

Measure, Template, Mark, Repeat

templating

To determine the correct placement of the holes, I started with an 18" x 18" square cardboard template. This matches the length of the seat rails and the distance between their outer edges. I held this template against the bottom of the driver seat, and marked where the mount holes needed to be. Once bored out, the template was ready. I set the driver seat in place and to mark where the front of the seat rails needed to be. Hmm.. the new seat's seat rails are longer than the original. They are so much longer, in fact, that they hang off the front of the pedestal by about an inch so I re-drew the front holes on the cardboard template for the front mounts. The next available hole rearward is about 2 inches back. This places the new hole squarely within the pedestal. Since the seat location is not as clear from the front of the rails (due to the drop in the front before the end of the rail) as the rear of the rails, I marked the pedestal along the rear edges of the rails for the template to align to. After removing the seat, I aligned the template with these marks and then marked where the holes needed to be. 

I test fit and marked where I thought the holes should go and then measured for straightness. And then repeated that cycle until I had the planned seat mounts square. Before boring the holes, it is worth considering that 2 of these holes will pass through the wheel tub into the area where the tires are. Accordingly, getting bolts that are not too long is very important. I got 25mm long (M10 grade 10.9) bolts so they are long enough to pass through the rails, and the steel tubs without protruding very far into the wheel well. While there is enough thread on the bolt in the wheel well for the nut to bite, they are short enough that the tire could not possibly touch it. The passenger-side rear bolt, actually, just has enough thread on it for the nut to fully engage, with no part of the bolt protruding through. The pair of inside bolts, on the other hand, remain inside the seat pedestal. These nuts are hard to reach, but there is plenty of meat on the bolts for the nuts to grab onto. Once I have carpet installed, it will be quite difficult to get a socket on them. I will need to form a flap with the carpet so I can get in there.

 

One thing I found interesting while doing this: the stock driver seat is not square. The front edge angles slightly towards the center of the bus, so as you slide the seat forward, the seat slightly shifts towards the center. I did not duplicate this, but it is interesting.

 

Drillin'

My drill bits have not improved since the rear anti-sway bar install (See Handling the Handling - Rear Anti Roll Bar), so I slowly drilled the holes into the seat pedestals. I had intended to tap the holes so the bolts would thread into the seat pedestal before they were nutted from below. This plan was set aside when I considered how far under the seat the front bolts would be and how hard it would be to wrench them down. So, instead, I bored three them all the way out so the bolt would drop through the holes instead. I did tap the outer rear hole. Once all four holes were drilled out on the passenger side, I set the template in place and set the bolts through. They lined up perfectly. Sweetness.

both seats in. pardon the trash

With the holes for the passenger seat drilled out, I pretty much duplicated the hole locations for the driver side. On the driver side, I chose to drill straight through the original seat rails. I keyed off of an existing hole in the rear outer seat rail, since the template was almost there. The outer holes simply align with the template. This decision prevented some alignment issues, and also set the holes in spots where the original seat rail would not get damaged, and could still be used. This allows for a future decision to put original seats back in, and it provided a couple of additional layers of original German steel, adding to the strength of the overall install. I drilled out the 4 holes in the same stair-step method of drilling out the center hole with a super-tiny bit and bore it out wider with progressively larger bits until it's big enough for the bolt to drop through.

Driver Pedestal

Similar to the passenger pedestal, the driver pedestal got a clean-up, rust treatment and paint. Unlike the passenger side, however, the rust was more prevalent. I think the leak from that old plastic hose from the remote brake reservoir to the master cylinder caused it. So, I included some Eastwood Rust Encapsulator in the treatment. I got completely under the pedestal as well as the mount holes I had just drilled out.

 

Mount Up

With the holes drilled out, it was just a matter of patience getting the bolts in and tightened down. Since the front bolts are buried inside the seat rails, I started with them. I tipped the seat back a touch and wiggled the bolts into the runners so the bolts hung down. I set the seat in place, letting the front bolts fall into their holes. I figured these were harder to solve for than the rears, since I could slide the seat forward to get to those bolts. I lifted up on the seat adjuster and slid the seat forward enough to be able to directly manipulate the rear bolts. The inner rear bolt dropped through easily, and I was able to thread the rear outer bolt into the tapped hole. Once snugged, I threaded on the nut and tightened it down. Then, I set the nut onto the inner rear bolt and slid the seat back. The 2 front bolts were difficult to address with a wrench because the upper slider did not slide past them when the seat was most rear-ward. I was able to hold them in place with a bladed screw-driver while tightening the nuts from below, however. I accept that this means they may not be torqued down as much as any of us would like, but that's how it goes sometimes. Also, I omitted washers from the inner bolts, simply because I didn't have many.

Left Undone

The rear bolts on the driver side encountered some issues that I will need to address. The inner bolt hole intersected with a support rib, so a nut currently cannot fully seat. I need to get in there and trim the rib back. The driver-side outer bolt hole encountered a contour within the wheel well, preventing the nut from setting. This will be easier to resolve: bfh (big fn' hammer) to flatten the contour. I will solve these when I do the noise control steps since I will need to remove the driver seat anyway. I will include washers and will get the fasteners torqued down then too.

Test

At this point, both seats were in. So, Boo and I took a test drive. In our driveway. Without starting the engine. Okay, the test consisted of the two of us simply sitting in the seats, listening to the radio enjoying the new front speaker set up (See Returning to Hapy Sounds Part 1 and Part 2) and imagining the first camping trip. We will have a real test when Hapy is back on the road. I have moved Hapy around the driveway with the new seat. It is firm and supportive, but high. I can't tell yet if it's bad, it's just different. My feet can easily push the pedals all the way to the floor, so there is no safety issue. I will just have to get used to the higher viewpoint.

Tuukka's garage seat

As you can see from that last picture, I have started applying some noise control in the form of vibration deadening material onto the cab ceiling (some ResoNix, plus some leftover Noico). Of course, I am already asking myself whether I should remove those seat partitions, even without adding swivels, so the seats can recline farther. It seems like there is always something to do "next time". Perhaps the most important thing at this point is that I can return the old seats to GratefulEd. Tuukka, the dog, will very much miss them as they have been his go-to spot while hanging out with me in the garage.

 

My last 2 posts prior to this one contained a great deal of idea-mulling. As I just mentioned, I have started some efforts in the noise reduction space and will continue as time allows. Between clearing the spots where it will go in the bus and the careful application of it (lots of measuring and test fitting for the layers above the CLD), there's a lot of time spent which does not translate very well into posts. Still, I have a few other little things I have going on, so I will wrap those up around the noise-contain work so I don't go too many weeks without posting anything.

That's it for now. Thanks, as always, for following along-