Ed's Contoured Seats in Yet Another 90's Era MR

[mwaalen]

Nothing really crafty or complicated with this modification but sharing what I learned from doing this a second time around in case someone else wishes to tackle this. Take-Aways as follows...

• My first time-around I tried to use the truss-style hangers but struggled matching them up with existing holes so used the peg spacers then and now. If I can figure out how, I will forward on that post link as there may be some forgotten tips.
• The distance between hanger bolts varied a bit as drilled through the gunnels. Possibly due to fitting the original seats.
• Ed's seats have a wider center line between the "arms" which caused concern so I over-drilled by 1/64" to give a bit of wiggle-room for the hanger bolts to find their new home. I crossed fingers and drilled through the center of the seat "arms" and given the oversized hole it all went together without too much tapping with a plastic hammer.
• After cursing up a storm I dun got smart & used tape to keep the spacer/pegs from falling off as I do not have 4 hands.
• The hanger bolts were just long enough to accommodate the thicker seat frames. Actually one bolt just barely so I left off the washer.

 

[Alan Gage]

I over-drilled by 1/64" to give a bit of wiggle-room

You must be an engineer if your idea of "wiggle room" is 1/64"

Nicely done.

Alan

 

[mwaalen]

Thanks Alan. Actually wanted to over-drill by twice that however upon chucking that bit it was bent and wobbled so horribly it would've drilled a 1/2" hole. I really never expected it all to go together without reaming out the holes further but I guess there was enough flex in everything as a whole. Part of the concern was how much pitch/angle I put in the holes as opted not to use a drill press as figured it would take me half the day to simply jig the contoured seats up level/horizontal.

 

[stevet]

In the past I have laid the old seat on top of the new one and the cut arms to match and drilled using the old seat holes as guides.

 

[mwaalen]

I agree this makes sense stevet but I could only use the arms as a guide for the cuts which worked great. If I were to use the holes as a template, they would've been off center on the arms and getting concerningly close to the edges. Or if I were to center the hole on one arm, the adjacent would be even firther off center.