- Jul 3, 2019
- 200
- 304
- Funster No
- 62,133
- MH
- Ducato MWB, DIY :-)
- Exp
- 15 years campervanning, 60+ camping
Like many self convertors I’ve fitted a spare UK drivers seat to replace the twin seat in our Ducato. The seat fits straight in, however it leaves it with the seat belt anchor and the armrest on the wrong side. Creating brackets for the seatbelt is quite feasible, but the armrest is trickier. As inspiration for others, this is how I did it. Although it requires some engineering skills, it is not hard.
Fair copies of the OE armrest are available on ebay/Amazon etc for c£25.
The bracket shape differs slightly; the arm top is black, not dark grey; and the adjuster is orange, not black. If you have OCD about your van... – stop here! Ditto if you insist on stress analysed and crash tested parts on your vans.
One bugbear on this operation is that the lumbar control knob is set exactly where you’d want the pivot to be. To overcome this, I accepted pushing the hinge point forwards. So our RH armrest sticks out further than the LH one.
However I reduced this by cutting a 13mm rad semi-circle from the flat edge of the arm, so it nested around the Lumbar knob.
I un-hooked the seat back’s cover and pulled it up c 100mm. This exposed enough of the seat frame to see that the seat back frame consists of a tube loop, with a pressed gusset from the front bolt back to the frame tube. For my mod I drilled the back edge of this (least stressed bit), and tapped the gusset M6 (to minimise the hole size , and also get more threads in). I then made a custom plate to bolt on at theses holes ( with a couple of mate nuts as packers, and reach forward to provide new mounting holes that the arm could bolt onto, with a 25dia hole around the knob. I used 6mm alu plate, which could take tapping mate to use the original holes in the armrest.
The Chinese arm has extra bosses on the bolt holes that I left in; though they could be ground off to reduce the overall width.
Result:
However I reduced this by cutting a 13mm rad semi-circle from the flat edge of the arm, so it nested around the Lumbar knob
I un-hooked the seat back’s cover and pulled it up c 100mm. This exposed enough of the seat frame to see that the seat back frame consists of a tube loop, with a pressed gusset from the front bolt back to the frame tube. For my mod I drilled the back edge of this (least stressed bit), and tapped the gusset M6 (to minimise the hole size , and also get more threads in). I then made a custom plate to bolt on at theses holes ( with a couple of mate nuts as packers, and reach forward to provide new mounting holes that the arm could bolt onto, with a 25dia hole around the knob. I used 6mm alu plate, which could take tapping mate to use the original holes in the armrest. The Chinese arm has extra bosses on the bolt holes that I left in; though they could be ground off to reduce the overall width.
Result:
Positives: looks good; works well, retains lumbar control. Low cost DIY fit, minimally invasive without welding, seat or seat cover removal.
Negatives: not a perfect match cosmetically (but could be done similarly with an OE one), unknown stress issues in an “ultimate crash” (though it feels ok to me), 6mm bolts may not survive heavy mis-use.
I'm sure a better job could be done, but that would need a full strip to try it, and probably an FEA/stress study: I've to too much to finish to bother for a DIY job on our own van!
Fair copies of the OE armrest are available on ebay/Amazon etc for c£25.
The bracket shape differs slightly; the arm top is black, not dark grey; and the adjuster is orange, not black. If you have OCD about your van... – stop here! Ditto if you insist on stress analysed and crash tested parts on your vans.
One bugbear on this operation is that the lumbar control knob is set exactly where you’d want the pivot to be. To overcome this, I accepted pushing the hinge point forwards. So our RH armrest sticks out further than the LH one.
However I reduced this by cutting a 13mm rad semi-circle from the flat edge of the arm, so it nested around the Lumbar knob.
I un-hooked the seat back’s cover and pulled it up c 100mm. This exposed enough of the seat frame to see that the seat back frame consists of a tube loop, with a pressed gusset from the front bolt back to the frame tube. For my mod I drilled the back edge of this (least stressed bit), and tapped the gusset M6 (to minimise the hole size , and also get more threads in). I then made a custom plate to bolt on at theses holes ( with a couple of mate nuts as packers, and reach forward to provide new mounting holes that the arm could bolt onto, with a 25dia hole around the knob. I used 6mm alu plate, which could take tapping mate to use the original holes in the armrest.
The Chinese arm has extra bosses on the bolt holes that I left in; though they could be ground off to reduce the overall width.
Result:
However I reduced this by cutting a 13mm rad semi-circle from the flat edge of the arm, so it nested around the Lumbar knob
I un-hooked the seat back’s cover and pulled it up c 100mm. This exposed enough of the seat frame to see that the seat back frame consists of a tube loop, with a pressed gusset from the front bolt back to the frame tube. For my mod I drilled the back edge of this (least stressed bit), and tapped the gusset M6 (to minimise the hole size , and also get more threads in). I then made a custom plate to bolt on at theses holes ( with a couple of mate nuts as packers, and reach forward to provide new mounting holes that the arm could bolt onto, with a 25dia hole around the knob. I used 6mm alu plate, which could take tapping mate to use the original holes in the armrest. The Chinese arm has extra bosses on the bolt holes that I left in; though they could be ground off to reduce the overall width.
Result:
Positives: looks good; works well, retains lumbar control. Low cost DIY fit, minimally invasive without welding, seat or seat cover removal.
Negatives: not a perfect match cosmetically (but could be done similarly with an OE one), unknown stress issues in an “ultimate crash” (though it feels ok to me), 6mm bolts may not survive heavy mis-use.
I'm sure a better job could be done, but that would need a full strip to try it, and probably an FEA/stress study: I've to too much to finish to bother for a DIY job on our own van!
