Rear Seat

January 25, 2006

Like the front seats, I purchased the rear seat from Avipro.  The seat comes with some eye bolts to attach it to the fuselage.  The nice thing about this is that you can pull out the rear seat leaving the eye bolts and they double as tie downs for cargo.

The eye bolts thread into some bushings welded into the bottom cross tubes at stations "D" & "E".  I started by making the bushings.  The bushings were made from 4130 tube that was drilled and tapped to receive the eye bolts.  Here is one with the eye bolt threaded in:

The rear eyebolts are 3/8" and the front are 5/16"

To properly locate the holes, the 4 bushings were threaded onto the eye bolts and then bolted to the seat legs.


The rear seat was then placed into position with the bushings standing on the cross tubes of stations D and E. The cross tubes were then marked for hole location.  The holes were then drilled in the cross tubes at stations D & E at the proper locations. The holes were opened up until the bushings would slide into the holes.  With the eyebolts still screwed in and still attached to the seat, the bushings were tack welded, top and bottom, in place.

The seat was removed and the bushings were fully welded to the cross tubes on the top.  The eye bolts were left screwed into the bushings for welding to keep them round and keep the threads intact. Quickly remove each eye bolt from the bushing right after welding and before it cools.  If it gets stuck, just let it cool and then used some penetrating oil to work it out. After removing the eye bolts, the bushings were welded on the bottom side.  The tap was then run back through each bushing to clean out any welding slag and re-cut the threads.

Here is one of the the rear bushings welded in place, with eye bolt and seat leg attached:

Note: the rudder cable was removed for the welding process then re-inserted later after the weld had cooled.

Here is a picture of one of the front legs of the seat attachment, showing the bushing welded in place:

The seat springs were installed using the same technique as for the front seats.

Here is the rear seat installed:

I used 10 bottom rows of springs (9 gauge) and 8 rows of back springs (11 gauge).

Here is a picture with all seats installed:

I placed some cushions on the rear seat and got back there to try it out.  Very comfy and has about the same leg room as my Jeep Cherokee. Interestingly, I noticed that you sit higher than the front seat occupants.  Should be a fairly good view for the rear seat occupant and I still had some headroom.

Rear Seat Installation

Completed:  January 28, 2006

Total time: 12 hours

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