If not actually creating a walkthrough then the top of the rear of the seat tubs could be strengthened and be tied to the b posts.
The remanufactured brackets are crazy money for what they are, last time I looked thy were about £800ish! I've looked at this for my bus though, as I've removed both bulkheads, and I think alot of people here are forgetting the problem caused by that big round thing used for changing direction, trying to mount a swivel seat here is near on impossible without mounting the swivel base actually on the runners, allowing the seat to be first moved very far enough back into the van before swivelling.
my van has a 2 seat bench and seperate drivers seat though the design I have in mind wont require the seat back to flip around anyway so its all good lol
you could cut bulkhead out and put a walk through one on drivers side to stiffen it up then put some bracing in on the passenger side to help? personally i wouldnt do it to my van, mines a twin slider kombi with only 2 seat up front but id never make it walkthrough for fear of making it weaker
This is a subject that will never get a proper answer. I too wouldn't cut out my bulkhead even from a walkthrough, even though Westfalia did. It just doesn't feel right, but it doesn't half make your camper better for camping.
have you seen the t4/5 bases that allow the double bench seats to swivel round or is that what you were originally thinking?
True.....i've read a lot of conflicting view on this, but i'm happy to cut it provided I can properly brace it up again. I figure a strengthening brace along the floorpan behind the tubs coupled with some boxing of the back of the tubs themselves, tubing the cut side of the drivers seat bulkhead and a fillet brace on the passenger side B post should be plenty sufficient to get it rigid?
Nah, with what I have in mind the base of the seat will be fixed and the back will move forward on runners in the sides of the base with adjustment to allow it to tilt on an axis into a seatback facing into the rear .... hard to explain but it makes sense in my head lol
So a flip seat using the original seat? You can just buy the arms for them and then fabricate them to work with it. Or fabricate your own arms.
yeah but all the arms i've seen look really clunky, and you have to practically climb over them to get in and out. What I have in mind should be fairly minimal looking and more or less integral to the seat frame. Like I said, its difficult to explain lol
The frame of the base would need beefing up and the backrest would be braced up at the pivots but I want it all to fit under stock covers so it'll need a bit of figuring out
yeh draw it all out then have a play i was wondering is their room for an arm rest that could act as a cantilever for the sides ?
i'm looking for a spare base to pull apart and have a tinker with.....cant use the one in my bus coz its my daily at the mo and my mrs would kill me
shame this time last year friend who i got light for had ex ambulance seat for fifty quid but hes disappeared now n sold bus , one will crop up have you trawled thru for sale lists ?? or viz ?? im sure their was one a short while back ?
Had a look on ebay and theres one on there im wtching, and i'll put a wanted ad up on some of the forums and see what turns up
theirs a middle seat on here you might be able to change the frame to suit ?? vw cabor i think . bowt page8
Surely everyone's missing a trick here.....a bench seat runs across the width of the bus, more or less....it wouldn't be too difficult to extend the backrest frame to lock into the B posts on either side...along the lines of conventional folding rear seats in hatchbacks etc. If as @Dicky suggested, the seat base/wheel arches are cross-braced, an extended backrest frame would provide adequate stiffness...possibly more so than the original walkthru bulkheads IMO
