Thursday, June 30, 2005

Seat - 3.5 hours (119 Total)

I installed the seat today. It went together relatively easily but I did have some trouble with the rivet nuts which go into the seatback and hold the headrest in place. The important thing with the rivet nut is to make sure you have a long enough bolt, not screw, and a washer. It also helped to install the bolt into the rivet prior to slipping the rivet into the hole. I was lucky to have a bolt that had a smaller head than the nut. This allowed me to use a box wrench on both the nut and bolt head.

I needed to grind down the edge of the seat support flute tube so it would rotate in the hinge riveted to the seat back. I used my Dremel for this and to grind down the bottoms of the seat back frame so the frame could lean back fully.

I was able to sit in the seat for the first time! It was quite comfy.

The main reason I'm working on the seat now is because I noticed that the flap handle mechanism doesn't have mounting holes pre-drilled for the trim wheel mechanism. More importantly the flap mechanism doesn't resemble the drawings for the trim instructions. When I asked Rans about this they suggested that I install the seat and find a comfortable position to mount the trim wheel on to the flap assembly.