Seat base tidy-up

Finally the arctic temperatures have diminished long enough to stand outside with a tape measure for more than five minutes. Just long enough for me to do some little jobs on the bases of the new seats.

Its proving difficult to track-down the plastic trims for the seat bases (without buying the whole base) and I'm not prepared to pay whatever rate Volkswagen might be charging, so armed with some leftover plyboard, off-cuts of carpet and a few strong magnets, I've gone from untidy seat base:


To something slightly more pleasing to the eye:


Somewhere to store small items out of sight and a more finished look when sitting in the rear of the van.

Now to track down a handbrake cover...

The Bed - almost completed...

This is how the bed has been left for the last couple of weeks (last update here) with the final rear board still to do.


And here it is almost completed, just some slight adjustments to make to the foam, cover the rear board in carpet, and make some dividers for the underneath storage area. The foam sections are all temporary until we take the van in for it's final interior fitment, at that point we are hopefully going to have some proper sections made and upholstered professionally - this one's not a job for Stone174!

Creating space

Adding a swivel base to the passenger seat was an absolute must. It's something we had in the old T3 van and have missed having until now.

It's surprising how it instantly feels like there is more living-space in the van; not only somewhere else to sit, it opens up the rear of the van and connects it to the cab area, no longer do the two feel separate.

The walk-thru area is a god-send especially when arriving at a destination in bad weather, no more getting out just to put the kettle on!

Front seat fitting

A fairly straightforward task for the period between Christmas and New Year; fitting the new captain's seats.

First off, a quick goodbye to the old twin seat, you won't be missed.


Then onto removing; a simple case of unbolting the eight bolts holding the twin seat in place and removing the four that won't be needed for fitting the single seat:


Take this opportunity to clear up all those pasty crumbs!

Then onto removing the driver's seat. We split this one from the base so as not to upset the handbrake and all the wiring/gubbins underneath the seat.


We then split the passenger seat from it's base to sandwich in a Sportscraft swivel base. German quality, TüV approved, these can be purchased from a wide range of motorhome suppliers, ours came from Bluebird Customs.


One thing to note is that the holder for the various bits of wiring underneath a twin seat appears to be different from that of a single seat. With the help of a handy little L-shaped bracket made by JC of JC Motors (seen in the picture above), we were able to remount the existing wiring bracket without too much head-scratching.



Then it's just a matter of bolting everything back together and, hey presto, two comfortable seats with arms, a swivel-base on the passenger side and that much-needed walk-through gap in the middle.

The twin seat and single driver's seat are currently for sale, get in touch if they are of interest.

UPDATE: Now sold.

Merry Christmas...

...and a Happy New Year to all readers of Stone174.

I'm glad to hear that this blog has been an inspiration to some of you to tackle your own van conversions, here's to more of the same in 2010, see you at the shows!

Richard.

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.