Laying rear seats

Gidday , is there a way to lay the seats down so they are flat and dont have the lump and dips that I am getting ..any help will be appreciated ..cheers Tezza

Unfortunately not. I slept in mine after a big party and even with copius amounts of alcohol I couldn't get a good night sleep. Serves me right!
Maybe get a layer of foam rubber to put over the top?

My partner & I just spent our first camping trip, sleeping in the van instead of a tent.

I rotated the middle row of seats around and left it in the upright position. The back part of the rear row wasn't fully lowered due to some stuff underneath. There was also a gap of 20-25 cm between the seats, but as I had put a 50mm foam mattress over the seats, we were reasonably comfortable.

This was a bit of a rush job just to be able to get away on the weekend and hopefully future versions will prove to be more comfortable, especially with the middle row of seats being removed. Have to see if I took any photos of our setup.

The one disadvantage of the weekend was having to remove 5.1kg of sand from the bash plates & other nooks & crannies underneath!!

i use a couple of old pillows to smooth out my seats before putting a sheet over for sleeping. this seems to work pretty well and covers up the seatbelts, hinges etc - but in due course i'm gonna save up for one of those self-inflating camping mats (basically about 2 inches of foam inside a lilo) to put over the top which i think will sort out the remaining tiny niggles.

thank you all for your advice..we are using a latex/rubber mattress over the seats and it works for our old backs ..
cheers tezza

Hi all, yesterday I removed the middle row of seats.

Whoever said that they were very heavy wasn't joking. My partner & I struggled to lift them out and they have now found a permanent home in the back room of the house!!

I moved my drawer & fridge to where the seats were, built up the height,put the mattress in place and had a test lie down. Much more comfortable than before.

Now to design a drop-down table, the framework of which could be held in place via the 2 rear bolts which were holding the middle row of seats before.

Amazing how much more space there is once the seats have been removed.

Will post some pics once I find somewhere to post them.

Werner

Sounds like it's coming along nicely there Werner ..be good to see the pics when you post them ..
cheers Tezza

Hi Tezza,

I've finally been able to put up some pics of our intended setup, well the next version anyway.

[img]https://s1052.photobucket.com/albums/s446/wkutsche/Hiace_campervan_mods [img]

There will be an adjustable table between the rear seats and the drawer so that it will be able to be used for dining as well as a support for the lower end of the bed at night. When dining, the mattress will be moved to the front of the van.

I'm only setting the van up as a part-time camper as I want to have as little weight in the van during my everyday commute to work.

More pics to come once the table has been installed.

Cheers,

Werner

Very interesting there Werner , be good when you have finished your redesigning ..thanks for the pics ..tezza

airbed over the seats , you dont need to blow it up rock hard , just a bit is all it needs


im also a remover of the rear seats , due to the lack of weight it wheelspins rather easily and brings moments of arse cleching fun as i struggle for grip ( 2wd ) out of junctions

Looks good Werner, well done.

Vans are fun in slippy conditions thats for sure izzzzy

your not wrong , plus given all my cars ( 5 ) are turbo charged i tend to drive everywhere with errrrr lets say dedication , because of this the van gets the same lets get there like yesterday treatment


off to wales tomorrow in it , bike and dog at the ready , if i can ill stop and grab a piccy up a mountain somewhere and post it up

Ive recently ripped out all the back seats in my super custom, fitted a solar panel to the roof, an engel fridge behind the passenger seat, 100AH deep cycle battery/inverter etc.

and i put one of these in the back as my bed:
http://www.innovationliving.com.au/Cubed-90-Sofa-Bed/

I pretty much live in my super custom on my days off from FIFO work.

Here are the latest pics of my part-time camper setup.

The rear seats are lowered down as far as they will go and form the top end of the bed. The table setup forms the bottom end. A mattress is laid over the lot to give a comfortable base.

The drawer & fridge slide are held in place by the metal framework which in turn is secured by the 4 bolts which originally held the middle row of seats. The table can be set at 2 levels, one for dining (with a small frame, not shown) and the other for sleeping which is what this series of pics shows.



The drawer was originally in my L series Subaru, then modifed for my Toyota 4Runner and finally the SC van. With each change of vehicle the surrounding frame to the drawer has been reduced.
In pic 3, the white piece of timber supported by a slotted PVC pipe helps to stabilize the table, the underside of which can be seen at left. There is a short section of PVC pipe bolted to the table and this sits on the top of the drawer providing further stabilisation. A bolt though the table into the white piece of timber minimises movement. The other side of the table rests on the metal frame next to the window and is secured by bolts fed through a couple of holes.



The fridge slide bolts onto a section of framework which is permanently attached to the drawer setup. This stops the fridge from tilting when it's pulled toward the side door. The esky is part of the bottom end of the passenger side of the bed and prevents the mattress from sagging. It contains a cask of drinking water and at present, the gas bottle.



In pic 9, I have moved the second camping chair so that it actually sits on top of the pillow and esky. This has enabled the passenger side of the bed to be almost totally level, something I'm sure my partner will appreciate. The tub with the blue lid has been relocated to the rear of the vehicle under the seat.
Pic 11 is the view from the rear looking forward.

The second battery which runs the fridge, sits in a box behind the rear seat on the driver's side.

Well, after a lot of stuffing around, that's the latest version of my part-time camper. The next thing I need to do is to glue some velcro around the edge of the moonroofs so that I can fix some insect screen mesh in place to keep the wildlife out at night

The setup will be tested on the coming weekend to check it's functionality