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Old 11-12-2016, 11:58 PM   #1
Skoolie
 
Join Date: Apr 2016
Posts: 108
mounting van seats, filling floor holes

I have a 99 ford e450 7.3 Diesel airporter style bus.
Am doing the second conversion on it, this time insulating.

Anyway looking for ideas to fill holes in the floor, from what I can tell, the floor is plywood, covered with a rubber or vinyl sheet. My 2 initial ideas are to get some canned foam and squirt it in or tape the hole underneath and fill it with epoxy like the liquid weld stuff since it has filler mixed in.

I have some nice bench seats from our Ford Aerostar and a couple of nice captains chairs from a GMC what ever they call a little 4wd, am having a brain fart or a senior moment, like a small suburban. I am going to raise the floor with rigid foam insulation and putting 2mm vinyl plank over that. I tried to get the floor mounts from the wrecking yard, but they said $200-$300 to cut the floor out, then also we want to raise the seat higher for comfort.
I am a retired shipyard steel fabricator and Training Coordinator, so will like find some steel angle to bolt to the floor and bolt the bench seat to it, or just fabricate a new bench seat undercarriage. With raising it up, I can use a long bolt from underneath, then put a nut to hold the bolt inside, then bolt the bench seat to that long bolt. Anyway, I figure I am not the first one to use Van bench seats in a conversion. Interested more in your ideas, do not need judgment on mine, but I always keep an open mind to better ways of doing things. Building ships is about expediency, so time is money, but this is for fun, so have no clock ticking to find solutions.

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Old 11-13-2016, 06:59 AM   #2
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Location: Andrews,Indiana
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Year: 1991
Coachwork: Bluebird
Chassis: AARE
Engine: 3116 Cat 250hp
Rated Cap: Just the two of us.
I have a van seat out of some sort of Pontiac as my co-pilot seat. It was just bolted to a bracket. I bought a commercial seat swivel and welded the necessary extensions to it to bolt my seat to.
I have two inches of Styrofoam as insulation under my plywood flooring. In order to make sure the seats would NEVER move I glued layers of plywood to match the thickness of the styrofoam that matched toe foot print of my mounting needs. The seat brackets are bolted through everything with very large washers that I made out of 1/4" steel under the original floor.
Since I buy bolts by the pound and the cost isn't all that much different I use grade 8 bolts for pretty much everything.
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Old 11-13-2016, 02:11 PM   #3
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Join Date: May 2010
Location: Farmington Hills, Mi (Detroit area)
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Year: 2000
Coachwork: Eldorado Aerotech 24'
Chassis: Ford E-450 Cutaway Bus
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I did mine the same as Somewhere did. If you're just bolting through the plywood I would add some big washers to avoid having the bolts pull through in an accident. The floor beneath the spot I mounted our passenger captain's chair was plywood over steel which should be a bit more crash worthy.

Be aware of the frame rails and other structural steel below the floor when mounting your seats.
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Old 11-13-2016, 06:04 PM   #4
Bus Nut
 
Join Date: Oct 2016
Location: Pensacola and Crystal River, FL
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Year: 1998
Coachwork: AmTran International
Chassis: 3800
Engine: Navistar 7.6L
if it was me doing this, I would run four pieces of angle iron up vertically from the frame (or down from where you know you want them but spaced out to chassis frame width. Bolt or weld to side of the frame.
Then from the for stubs protruding from the floor, wled on cross members that the bench seat would bolt to.
If at all possible I would avoid relying on any size washer under plywood.
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Old 11-14-2016, 03:09 PM   #5
Skoolie
 
Join Date: Apr 2016
Posts: 108
I have some big washers left over from taking out the transit seats, they just bolted them to the floor, all good suggestions so far. What is frustrating is that I just want to insulate and put in the damn floor. I do need to raise the aerostar bench seats higher and the cpt chairs so when raising the floor an inch will make matters worse. Also need to get access to insulate walls prior to floor installation.
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Old 11-14-2016, 07:25 PM   #6
Skoolie
 
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Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: central texas
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Year: 1990
Coachwork: Thomas/International
Chassis: 3700
Engine: 7.3
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Angle

Bolt some 3 or 4in. Angle on the metal floor with the bolts going through the frame, add your insulation then bolt/weld more angle or square tube on that to bolt the chair too
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Old 06-16-2017, 04:37 PM   #7
Mini-Skoolie
 
Join Date: Nov 2015
Location: currently MA
Posts: 13
Year: 2005
Coachwork: Chevy Eldorado
Chassis: Fiberglass Shuttle Bus
Engine: C5500 Kodiak Diesel
any tips for how to mount the seat to the floor? i had to replace my driver's seat and bought two matching captain's chairs... will it suffice to screw the seat mount directly to the floor? they don't necessarily need to swivel
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Old 06-16-2017, 05:43 PM   #8
Skoolie
 
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Location: central texas
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Year: 1990
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Chassis: 3700
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make sure you use bolts and nuts, tie into at least 4 frame pieces below the sheet metal, you can use angle or square tube as mounts, you can layer them like lincoln logs to raise the heights,
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