[cprsn]

We just had a Freedman Foldaway seat professionally installed in our T250 LWB High Roof by a coach company. I want to share some pics for anyone looking to do a DIY install. I had considered doing something along the lines of this thread but we wanted ours positioned as close to the front driver-side of the cargo area as possible where the floor isn't flat. The installer said he put it as close as he could to that corner. He had to bump it out an inch or so from where we wanted because of a "frame issue". He said he'd need to modify the frame to move it anymore towards the wall and that's something they don't ever do.

He only used four bolts with 4" washers which was a bit surprising, but it's a very large coach shop that does installs like these all the times so I'll assume they know that they are doing. There is a plate between the base of the seat an the floor. That's somethign we already had on hand. This is the second van this seat has been in. It was in a Dodge Caravan previously and that plate was from that install. He used thick washers to deal with the ridges in the floor.

Full Disclosure: I have an alterior motive for posting this info. I'm looking to sell a spare foldaway. Details here: Freedman BV Foldaway Bench Seat

 

[JMG_Systems]

We have designed and pull tested a lot of seating systems over the years. Yes, those flip-up seats have passed a pull test done on a "solid metal table" and are FMVSS compliant, but they require A-LOT of reinforcement on the top and underside of the floor to make everything work well in the event of an accident. To top it off, those seats aren’t very comfortable. We work closely with one upfitter partner, http://mobility-specialists.com, that builds tons ADA vans for state and city transit systems. They use a lot of these style flip-up seats in their builds, but they also go through great lengths to reinforce the floor to prevent operational issues and ensure maximum safety. You can see some HD floor rails in the floor used to spread the load out across the floor. What you can't see is a huge 3/16" thick plate that the rails mount to is secure to the floor AND the wall. Underneath is another huge HD support plate/bracket that ties in the frame rails as well. These flip-ups are cool and convenient, but they present and huge engineering challenge from mounting perspective.

 

[cprsn]

Many thanks for sharing your perspective as a professional. Sounds like it would be better to have thick plates on the underside vs what I got. I'll take a note to see if I can put some plates down there in the future. I'm not sure I can do much about a wall mount unless I were to have a custom mounting plate fabricated. I guess I assumed I'd need to make some compromises on safety with an aftermarket seat install vs a factory install with all the crash testing behind it.

 

[randerp]

Looks good. Adding a foldable seat is my next plan.

 

[Bakerwoods]

Hey! I'm looking to do this same thing and have some questions if you're still an active user:

• Looks like you got this about as close to the driver seat as possible but an adult person can still sit there (at least for short trips)?
  • Our main purpose will be a child seat/seats. Has anyone ever tried to install two child seats on something like this??
• With the seat folded down it looks like you have maybe a foot or two behind it until you get to that vertical pillar/seam? Did you build a cabinet here?
• If you did a campervan conversion did you put the sink and cooktop on the passenger side? I know some people opt that way for various reasons.

Thanks in advance for any tips!

 

[cprsn]

Hey! I'm looking to do this same thing and have some questions if you're still an active user:

• Looks like you got this about as close to the driver seat as possible but an adult person can still sit there (at least for short trips)?
  • Our main purpose will be a child seat/seats. Has anyone ever tried to install two child seats on something like this??
• With the seat folded down it looks like you have maybe a foot or two behind it until you get to that vertical pillar/seam? Did you build a cabinet here?
• If you did a campervan conversion did you put the sink and cooktop on the passenger side? I know some people opt that way for various reasons.

Thanks in advance for any tips!

Hi, I'm not too active these days since I've been away from the state were my van is parked for some time now.

• We positioned it mainly for child seating, but it's also seating for a Lagun table on one side. For the other side of the table we have the cab seats on swivels
• We have a cabinet that runs from the floor to the ceiling right behind the seat when it is deployed. Bottom of the cabinet is for a chest-style refrigerator on a a pull out shelf, middle-bottom is storage and a pull out shelf for our stove, middle is the pantry, and top is the evaporator/blower for an AC system.
• Yes, we put it on the passenger side....it's been so long I don't remember why exactly. It just worked out better for our layout inside the van.

The build is like 90% done, but we haven't had a chance to actually try it out as a camper (we've been away for the past year), so I can't really say yet if any of the above decisions were good ones.