vettereddie

I have an xB with a heavily modified rear sectoin for a wheelchair ramp. When not needing to transport the wheelchair, it kinda sucks not having a back seat, especially when going out with friends, I always have to ride with them or take two cars.
Here's what it looks like now, there's pleanty of room to work with.



Suggestions on how to do this? I'm thinking finding a set of xB front seats, redoing the mounting bracket and bolting it to a steel frame. There are four tiedown lock tracks for the wheelchair straps, I'd like to somehow secure the seats to that. The belts would be a whole nother story, i do still have the mechanism for the stock rear seats if the buckles fit the front as well.

nikbrewer

the one problem i see is making the easily removable but still safe. the ywould need to bolt to the car in some fashionim thinking soem type of playe boled tothe floor that the seats could latch into maybe?

vettereddie

Like I said, there are already four tiedown points that secure the wheelchair in place. I forgot I took that picture before I had installed them. Each is held in by a big ___ bolt going through the tiedown plate on the top and a huge washer on the bottom side. They are going through the modified floor which is 1/4" steel welded to a box frame. Here's what the restraint system looks like:



There is one in each corner.

nikbrewer

oh, that loosk good
what slide into thet trach, the wheels? it looks like something slides and snaps in place. if that the case, yes just get front seats, or a bech seat of your liking, put it on a steel frame, so it has four legs that slade and snap into these spots

vettereddie

These are what lock into it, they are nylon straps with a metal track lock mechanism. I was thinking about using the same track lock and then weld a support bar directly to it or the triangle loop that its attached to.

NewMexicoxBPhatBoy

Only way i would see this happening, is if you design some sort of latch like that in the Dodge Caravan ... i dont know if you've ever been in one, but my parents' middle bucket seats have a latch that when u want to remove them, u just pull it up, and it unhooks than a tug and their out! thats most likely the only Safest way i would see it happening.. but good luck!

rdholtz

Unless the original seat mount points were removed in the modification, they might be usable in building a system to simply reinstall the original seats. The latch system discussed by NewMexicoxBPhatBoy might be useful with them. If you don't have the originals seats, I bet the company that did the conversion will have some -- and all the hardware. You might be able to talk them out of it for free or for cheap. You may have to make a system of pluggable holes in that floor plate to access to them.

Consider accident safety, too. Do what you can to bolt those rear seats in well, so you don't have the rear passengers launching forward into the front seats on impact. That would get everybody damaged.

vettereddie

No rear seats left, and while the upper corner mounts still exist, everyhting else is gone. I was planning on making a square tube frame to mount two front seats to, then attach the frame to those tie-downs using steel bars welded to the triangle rings. The restraint mount plates have already been tested in a windstar minivan with the same install. They were holding in a 250 lb wheelchair and crash dummy, so as long as I have the four points secured, it shouldn't be a safety issue. Now I need to find some front seats, or maybe pull the ones I have and put in four Sparco's in.

rdholtz

Or you could use the front seats for occasional rear use and put in two specialty ones in front.

vettereddie

Yeah, thought about that but would want them all the same for symmetry. I'm also considering a single rear seat, when I was doing work on my under-seat amp rack I moved the seat to the back, since the rear floor is on an incline it tilted the seat back, it's like riding in a Lay-Z-Boy. Adding in the 10.4" flip down monitor and it would be one nice rig to catch the game or play some Wii at shows.

burstaneurysm

Throw a hammock back there!