Sprinter van: Swivel seats
We were excited to get our swivel seats installed. We read they'd be a game-changer. My friend Matt's van has them and yes, they're very cool. Case in point:
Doesn't she looked relaxed?
First, I'll back up a bit. For Sprinter swivel seats, there are basically two options: Sportscraft and Eurocampers. After reading a very long thread on Sprinter-Source.com about the various options (okay, I didn't read all thirty-five pages), I ultimately chose the Eurocampers despite they were about $75 more all told. Here's why:
- Their outstanding customer service showed up as a theme in that thread, which I tend to think is worth a little extra up-front
- Their off-center swivel allows the seats to be rotated without opening the doors
- It seemed the Sportscraft swivels often needed finessing to fit because they're more of a homebrew concoction
- The Eurocampers swivels were crash-tested (or pull-tested)
They shipped pretty quickly and arrived ahead of schedule. So we got to work. First things first, we obviously had to remove the seats from the pedestals. To spruce up the cab, we picked up a couple cans of grey paint to give the seat mounts an easy update.
We also took the opportunity to do our best cleaning out the electrical rat trap under the driver's seat. Good news, however, is that I found the EK1 terminal! I'm hoping to figure out what it takes to tap into that for the stereo amplifier we'll be installing soon.
The bases look much better with their refresh.
We have a rule with our van: if we remove a part, we have to clean it. That includes the seats. They got a super-duper deep cleaning. As in, yep, with a toothbrush.
The instructions Eurocampers includes are well done. A combo of descriptions and labeled photos. The job only required a 13mm socket along with 5mm and 6mm hex sockets. Since the instructions mentioned torquing the swivel mount and seat screws to 18 ft-lbs, I broke out our click-type torque wrench and set it accordingly. That said, I'm not a huge fan of torquing down 5mm hex bolts (the ones that came with the swivels and mount them to the factory pedestals) that much. One of them came dangerously close to stripping. The factory 6mm bolts are solid and can be torqued easily to 18 ft-lbs.
With relative ease, the passenger swivel was installed.
The driver's side was going to be a little more complex because of the parking brake. It would require mounting an adaptor bracket Eurocampers included, as well as crawling under the van and repositioning the brake cable. The problem we quickly discovered was, well, the adaptor bracket was machined wrong.
The one on the top is what we originally received. The adaptor is meant to reposition the handbrake to point lower down and allow the swivel to clear it. The way the small, threaded holes are positioned on the top one actually lifted it up higher than sans adaptor. I was clued in when I couldn't get the brake cable to reach the handle pin. What the heck?
Here's where I'd like to mention that first point about their customer service. I called them the next day. With slight disbelief that the plate had been machined wrong, the guy on the other end said he'd have a correct one shipped out to me pronto. Within minutes, I had an email notifying me it had shipped. That was Friday. It showed up bright and early on Monday. Nice!
This is how it should look:
Then, with the parking brake handle reinstalled:
And, ultimately, engaged:
Once the cable was reattached through the pin in the handle, I crawled under the van to follow the instructions repositioning the cable bracket. In this photo, it's obvious where it was. The instructions mentioned turning it clockwise 1/2"-3/4".
Oh, I found this gem on my camera after importing my photos. Courtesy of my wife. Good times.
With the seats installed, we'll be able to swing around and face Squish. We still have to figure out how to design his bed and a dining table to fit.
Next up: an upgraded stereo…
