Slider for passanger chair?

[DuaneMC7]

Hi all

I am removing the floor in my 7 and need to come up with a design for a sliding mount for the passenger seat that would put it more even with the driver when traveling. I would prefer to have this slider below the surface of the floor.  Has any one come up with a good design for this? 

Thanks for any thoughts or ideas, Duane

[TomC]

Need more information.  How far do you want the chair to slide?  Will it be in a straight line, or a diagonal?  The simplest is to put a slider on the floor for the entire chair assembly to slide on.  Then on the chair mount, will also be the standard seat adjusting slider.  I would advise keeping the slider above the floor, since stuff would be able to get in the track and would be difficult to keep clean-as compared to a track that is above floor, that a periodic vacuuming would take care of.  Good Luck,  TomC

[DuaneMC7]

Hello Tom

Thats a good point you make about being above the the floor. I want the chair to slide in a strait line(front to rear) out over the stair well when traveling and back out of the stair well when parked.

Thanks Duane

[Jeremy]

The standard courier seat in my bus 'folded forward' to be alongside the driver, which you might find is an easier system to design. If you do build your own sliding mechanism bear in mind the safety considerations of the seat sliding unintentionally in an accident or heavy braking - the mechanism needs to incorporate a a strong and positive locking mechanism that automatically locks the seat in any position when you're not actually moving it. (I realise this probably seems like overkill as you're probably not intending to wear a seat belt anyway, but even so bad things can happen and injuries occur if the seat moves unexpectedly).

Jeremy

[DrivingMissLazy]

Duane, you might also want to consider a swivel on the chair. It is sometimes really nice to be able to turn the chair around for extra seating capacity when entertaining. My passenger chair also had a reclining back and a footrest that could be extended. My wife really liked that. Anything to keep momma happy. LOL
Richard

[DuaneMC7]

Hi

The seat will swivel to the living area and the slider will lock (safety first all ways )
If I mount the pedestal stationary  as far forward as I can the seat will be to the rear of the driver, neither myself or my better half want that. The seat needs to slide out into the stair well about 6in.

Thanks Duane

[DrivingMissLazy]

I have seen where several nuts have put in either a slider to cover up the stair well also so that your better halfs feet are not hanging over the pit, which is not very comfortable.
Richard

Hi

The seat will swivel to the living area and the slider will lock (safety first all ways )
If I mount the pedestal stationary  as far forward as I can the seat will be to the rear of the driver, neither myself or my better half want that. The seat needs to slide out into the stair well about 6in.

Thanks Duane

[JackConrad]

We mounted our co-pilot seat pedestal as far forward as possible (front of pedestal is just slightly behind the stepwell opening). By using the seat slide mechanism on the seat, the seat can be positioned almost as far forward as the drivers seat. We installed a sliding foot rest so my wifes feet do not dangle in the stepwell. Hope this helps, Jack.

[DuaneMC7]

Thanks Jack

I think I will look a little closer at that mount. I haven't rounded up a seat yet so I was unsure how much adjustment was in the  seat slide. Sounds like it works well for you so it should work for me also, Thanks

Duane

[Kristinsgrandpa]

You might look at van seats from a boneyard. Elect. controls would be nice too.

Ed

[FloridaCliff]

I saw a couple of really neat ones recently.

One of them had an extended floor and chair on a triple set of slides that went over the stair well.

It was carpeted to match the floor and looked good extended or retracted.

it could have been made to have the floor slide under the couch when retracted.

So many ideas, so little time!

Cliff

[littlehouse]

Duana, I haven't thought it through yet. But if you took a 1" plywood alittle bigger than the stair well
and put wheels on the pass. side and left rear and a stud the hight of the wheels, on the left front
and mounted a track on the pass. side wall and a matching U track on the door. So when the door
was closed you could roll this floor forward, you could mount the seat where you want it. A simple
pin through a hole in the rail to stop it moving.  A piece of metal at the front over the top of the
floor so it can't come up. Something like a slide out for a battery box that was built by some one on
this board that is better than me. Just a different way to do some thing.

    Ray with the littlehouse

[TomNPat]

We have a flop down stepwell cover that is at the same level as the drivers floor.  When the passenger's seat if faced rearward, the floor is 5" higher.  So our passenger seat is 5" lower when facing forward than when facing the rear to make it  comfortable.

We aren't satisfied with the way it works yet, but the seat we have does do that.  It works on a parallelogram which moves the seat both forward and down when facing forward and up when facing back.  If it eventually works, it will be real good.  Our major problem is that we're working with six inch wide centers.  Need more width for stability.

Next will be reversing the drivers seat.

TomNPat

[keithshotrodshop]

A good friend of mine has come up with a design in his MC8 in which the entire floor (about a 3 foot by 4 foot) section slides forward over the stairwell. I don't know the details of how he did this, but it cures the "dangling feet problem" and is looking quite nicely (it's not done yet, but is working). I thought this was a really cool idea. I know it does include a large electric motor under the floor along with a long spiral rod similar to a floorjack for a house.

[Chaz]

This is yet another thing I want to do in my bus. Those are some great ideas! Especially the parallelagram. If anyone has pix fo what they have seen or done, please post them!! This is another great space saver!!

Chaz