Sitting comfortably?

Well, in a word, no! The passenger twin seat has to go. It has been in the van nearly a year and that's as much as we can stand. I miss not having the walk-thru of the old van and not having a swivel-base passenger seat. We always knew that buying the van with a twin seat was always a bit of a compromise, funds have been saved and now it can go.

Christmas in the Stone174 house has never been a place of big romantic gestures but this year we have bought each other seats. Sourced from eBay, the passenger seat has come from an '06 van converted for a wheelchair bound passenger, the driver's seat from a low mileage '09 van where the owner would prefer to fit bucket-seats.


The passenger seat was a little more than we wanted to pay but these seem to be rarer as every panel-van comes with a twin-seat as default and a single as an extra - so a captain's single with arms was an extra on top.

Eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed the trim change between '06 and '09 - the newer seat having the leatherette sides as oppose to the earlier having INKA fabric all over. As we ultimately intend on having the seats re-trimmed it's something we're happy to live with for now.


The driver's side was a bit of a bargain (for the as-new condition) and therefore the value of both seats has balanced out nicely. The next job was to pick them up.

Posting a seat complete with base was never going to be cheap, for the same price we could fill the van with diesel and pick them up - one in Newcastle and one in Plymouth - road trip!!!

Newcastle was a four hour round-trip from Skipton, first-thing on Saturday morning, home in time to do a bit more work on the bed covering in the afternoon.

Saturday evening was a work's Christmas-do followed by a quick blast to Donnington for an over-night Travelodge stop. First thing Sunday, after refuelling on McMuffins and other road-side junk, it was down the M42 and M5 to Plymouth.

A quick chat with the seller and we were on our way back. A brief stop in Exeter for lunch and a bit of Christmas shopping then back on the road.

The weekend has put just short of a 1000 miles on the van, now to bolt the seats in - will update with progress in due course.

Bed covering

Squeaks and rattles are my absolute nemesis, I'll do anything to avoid them and as such the boards had to come off again to be covered. I've used the same automotive carpet as for the interior panels, using the same method and materials as previous.

Here's the seat base covered and in position:


Followed by the seat back (shown here in 'bed' position):


It looks a bit like 'carpet-overload' at the moment, but once the bedding is in and the rest of the interior is fitted, none of this will be visible. It should also help to dampen noise a little too.
Here's the foam in position:


And finally, because Stone174 doesn't cut corners, a rear view of the seat back - also carpeted to give a better finish than leaving blank board:


Just the rear-most board left to do. After all this I'll need a lie-down!

Bed and board

As promised, here's a pic of the bed frame with boards attached.


They were on only briefly as on our first trip out we noticed quite a considerable amount of rattle. This is only the boards against the frame, they have now been removed for carpeting - watch this space!

Time for bed...

So it's finally time to stop sleeping on the floor of the van and reclaim some much-needed storage space. Before bolting the Bluebird bed frame in I decided to fit a harder-wearing floor.

The old floor was only 3mm ply with rubber tiles over the top, it always felt a bit spongy and loose, time to double the thickness and lay some 6mm marine ply:


Next up was to assemble the rear frame - this gives the bed the desired height and somewhere to store camping gear:


Then it's time to offer-up the front assembly of the main mechanism and square everything up to the rear frame (already measured, measured, mulled-over and measured again), check, check again, try the seat mechanism - double-checking everything clears and bolt together:


One final check and then a quick once around to tighten up and fine-tune. Here's the mechanism in the upright 'seat' position:


The one thing you don't see in these pictures is the time spent removing the spare wheel and plastic under-trays in order to fit the spreader-plates that hold the bolts through the van floor. One tip is to spend as much time as you can aligning the bed frame to avoid any chassis crossmembers, take your time and don't drill anything until you're absolutely certain.

There's no way I could have done this on my own; it's definitely a two-man job. Thanks must go to JC at JC Motors for his years of experience with this kind of thing.

I'll post some more pics at the end of the weekend showing the fitment of the boards and the foam going in too...

Front seat frustration

Why is it so hard to find a good quality single passenger seat to replace the twin currently in the van?

If you've got a single and really need a twin (ideally in the INCA fabric) let me know and we'll do a swap...

Are there any breaker's yards out there with rear-ended T5s in them???

Bed Time...

So here it is in all it's flat-pack, self-assembly glory. One three-quarter width rock'n'roll bed frame from Bluebird Customs.

After a show-season of mulling-over different bed setups we have chosen the old style, straight forward rock'n'roll mechanism; it works well and gives a good quality seat in the upright position. We weren't keen on the look of some of the other 'sliding' seats that have two support legs at the front, limiting front access for under-bed storage.

The rock'n'roll bed has come along way since our old T3 version; which was little more than two hinges and some plyboard, this is a fully powder-coated frame made from 3/4" square tubing, laser-cut brackets, it's all MOT compliant.

One other great feature over the old system is the EZBACK mechanism for easy bed-to-seat return in one operation; no springs to ping and flimsy pins to pop - we've had a demonstration and are more than convinced this works!

Within the next few weeks you should hopefully follow the fitting of the bed frame, it might be a while yet before a full test-sleep!