How to remove seats without a partner or an angle grinder?

[gabrielah77]

Awww, so nice of you to notice! Thank you! Now I won't shut up!
;)

[HazMatt]

Ohhhhhh-whoooooooooa...
Dang!!!
I've heard of the consequences from opening Pandora's Box.
🤙
(Your middle name isn't Pandora, is it..?)

[Lkn4it]

I used an air impact driver on top. Once the bolt got a little loose, I jammed a pry bar under it to keep tension on the nut underneath and let the impact go full speed.

[DreamWeaverBus]

Me and Grampa got the seats out with *relative* ease using only elbow grease and an impact driver. We did use an angle grinder on a handful of bolts but the rest took an impact driver with another person holding the bolts so the screws turned.

PRE OIL EVERY SINGLE DAMN SCREW, top and bottom, heck do it twice and let it rest overnight... that seemed to make a huge difference in the ease of the bolts coming out with the impact driver.

[WLDNWALT]

I used the Blue Flame Speed Wrench (cutting torch) and I did not need any help.
I removed all 24 seats really fast and the bolts fell to the ground underneath the bus.
You can use a grinder with a cut blade if you do not have a torch.

[geminusprime]

I used a harbor freight inverter and angle grinder. Most bolts dropped right through to the ground, others I just angle grinded into until the seat came loose.

[dan-fox]

Has anyone gone at this from the point of view of trying to _tighten_ the bolt head in order to twist it off, as the first order of business? I don't have a bus yet, but it seems to me to be a good idea. Then, only the ones that don't respond to that treatment would have to get the -crawl-under-the-bus treatment, or the angle grinder treatment.

[Sleddgracer]

Originally Posted by dan-fox

Has anyone gone at this from the point of view of trying to _tighten_ the bolt head in order to twist it off, as the first order of business? I don't have a bus yet, but it seems to me to be a good idea. Then, only the ones that don't respond to that treatment would have to get the -crawl-under-the-bus treatment, or the angle grinder treatment.

that's a viable plan if the bolts don't spin - l've seen the odd post here where someone had success with that method - it will be the first thing l try when the time comes

the blue flame method would be plan B

[gs1949]

Yeah, I did that. The first thing with every bolt was to try to unbolt it. A few of them would twist off into a sharp little spike. And a few of them would just unbolt with no hassle. Together those 2 categories were maybe 10 percent. Sometimes both bolts on 1 leg would just come off. Made the overall job a little easier. But I'm not sure how typical my bus is.

It was well undercoated in 1995, and the undercoating is still in very good condition almost everywhere. But there was a lot of water coming in some of the windows, so some of the seat bolts got extremely rusty from the top down. Those tended to twist off in little spikes after about a half turn. Some other seat bolts did not get any water from the top down and were in a protected spot below, so there was very little rust on the bolt and they unscrewed easily without any wire brush or oil.

Many other bolts needed to be cleaned and oiled before I got them off. And for 2 or 3 bolts I borrowed an angle grinder, but that wasn't from rust. It was because there wasn't enough room for me to move my hand enough to turn the nut from underneath the bus.

[Meandering Mitch]

Just started the process of seat removal this evening and discovered doing it alone is going to be a little more work.

My Mom is always saying she wants to assist me with the skoolie conversion but I kinda feel bad about having an 85 y.o. woman rolling around under the bus...but she DID say she wanted to help !

[HazMatt]

Get her a creeper board, and she'll do just fine down there..!

Originally Posted by Meandering Mitch

Just started the process of seat removal this evening and discovered doing it alone is going to be a little more work.

My Mom is always saying she wants to assist me with the skoolie conversion but I kinda feel bad about having an 85 y.o. woman rolling around under the bus...but she DID say she wanted to help !

[Iron Horse]

Thanks for the tip. I'll be going solo too. You may have just saved me a world of head ache.

[neversayneverbus]

I've already taken out my seats, but I really like the idea of using a bottle jack or scissor jack to keep pressure on the bolts as you are trying to back them out. I would say you couldn't apply too much pressure, but just a gentle constant pressure.

My bus had a small seeping fuel leak from the tank when I bought it, so even though I have a torch, I wasn't too keen on trying to use it for the seats.

Angle grinder did the trick, because I didn't want to crawl under the bus even once to remove bolts. I'm sure I'll be doing plenty of that later for a further process of the build.

[brokedown]

Science!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV74...ature=youtu.be

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by brokedown

Science!

A few months ago I saw a video of someone doing something just like this, only once they had jacked it up a bit they went under the legs and cut with a sawzall. The bolt heads were flying around like bullets. The guy was also doing this in flip-flops but I don't think it was you. He was actually aware of the obvious danger of doing this, but said that's why he had safety goggles on.

He also bent his floor up a bit.

[EastCoastCB]

Originally Posted by musigenesis

A few months ago I saw a video of someone doing something just like this, only once they had jacked it up a bit they went under the legs and cut with a sawzall. The bolt heads were flying around like bullets. The guy was also doing this in flip-flops but I don't think it was you. He was actually aware of the obvious danger of doing this, but said that's why he had safety goggles on.

He also bent his floor up a bit.

Seems like an idea best left to the YouTubers and Facebookers.

[brokedown]

Originally Posted by musigenesis

A few months ago I saw a video of someone doing something just like this, only once they had jacked it up a bit they went under the legs and cut with a sawzall. The bolt heads were flying around like bullets. The guy was also doing this in flip-flops but I don't think it was you. He was actually aware of the obvious danger of doing this, but said that's why he had safety goggles on.

He also bent his floor up a bit.

Wasn't me, I don't wear additional eye protection unless I'm welding!

My floor didn't actually bend but the nasty plywood under the rubber was clearly unhappy about what had happened to it.

[brokedown]

Originally Posted by EastCoastCB

Seems like an idea best left to the YouTubers and Facebookers.

I'm kind of both, do they cancel each other out or am I double nuts?

[alpinekid]

I only had a couple of seats to remove, it was a handicap bus to start with, but I had a lot of wheelchair tiedown brackets.
I just put a big vice grip on the nut under the bus and a wrench on the bolt and unscrewed it. I was lucky no rust.
I couldnt get to the nuts on a couple of bolts that held down the tiedown brackets because of the gas tank or AC unit being in the way. On those I drilled out the head of the bolt and knocked it off with a cold chisle. Even thou they were grade 8 bolts it was no problem the drill the head and knock it off. No flame or sparks.
good luck

[neversayneverbus]

Science! lol that is awesome. Guess the bottle jack doesn't work very well. I still like the part where you wonder if it is messing up your floor, but then keep going until the bolts break off. I would have done the same thing, just to abate my curiosity.