Mounting Navigator Seat in MCI-102

[Tikvah]

I'm ready to lay the last sheet of plywood on the floor, but before I do I want to be sure I have something solid to mount the navigator seat to.  All the metal is pretty light weight.  What have you used in the past to mount your navigator seat?

I don't know what seat I'm going to use yet, so I'd be satisfied to put down a large plate of steel, but it needs to fasten to something.

I still have the old seat strip from front to back, so I hoped there would be some strength under that.  But it doesn't impress me much.  Where do you run the bolts?  Should I go all the way down to the wheel well and put bolts in from the tire well?

Ideas please.....

Thanks,
Dave

[bevans6]

My MCI is older than yours and still has air beams.  All the load of the bus is transfered via the air beams so I figure the structure around them is as strong as anything in there.  I did through bolts with backing washers through the floor beside the air beams, and on top I built a steel frame out of 1" square tubing and steel plate, around .100" gauge if I recall right, and welded the seat pedestal to that.  If I had still had the factory seat rails I would have used them.  It really is hard to figure how to fix seats and seat belts to these bus floors, I am looking forward to the recommendations you get.  I did the best I could, but I'm not completely thrilled with it.  I'll be honest though, I think the weakest link is the swivel pedestals.  It's  approved and all - but they don't impress me much at all!

Brian

[Oonrahnjay]

(snip)  I built a steel frame out of 1" square tubing and steel plate, around .100" gauge if I recall right, and welded the seat pedestal to that. (snip)

    That's pretty much what I did.  Being a transit, my bus had a door right at the windshield across from the driver with a pretty steep ramp up to the middle isle.  There was also a central "exit door".  I decided to build a flat floor from the drivers side over to the other wall, and close in the door.  The major frame for the floor I built from 1 X 2" steel and I think my seat plate was somewhere between .100 and 1/8".  The area where the ramp was is now an underfloor area (black tank hose? etc.) with a hatch/door to the outside.  I want that seat base to be sturdy and safe.

[lostagain]

I drilled holes right through the floor and into the wheel well. Used 1/2" bolts with large washers on the wheel well side. Tarred them with undercoating to keep the moisture out from the tire. Seems fairly solid. At least as good as the driver's seat that is bolted through the floor.

JC

[luvrbus]

Anchor the seat belts right the chair is not that important

[robertglines1]

I cut two  30 inch sections of the stock floor rail and turned them sideways(across coach) 12 inches apart --- to each other bolted back to floor steel.  Used shortened stock tee bolts to hold down seat base. and another set to hold down seat belts. Used 5/16 bolts to hold stock track to bus steel then replaced plywood around area.  Easy to remove and work around that way and I think each bolt has a pull strength of 2400lb each. Shear of like 8000lb. simple idea  for what it's worth.   Bob