Chinook RV

I would have taken you for a professional,(Ryobi not withstanding) that's not my trade but if I have to go there I tread slow and deliberate.Shoot took me longer to wire and install my Solar,then the Ta da,of your remodel,like"oh yeah and I installed the new wood floor last night" Reminds me of watching Norm Abrams on pbs,assembling a dovetail using Chinese algebra....which is to say...O,kayyyyy...Easy for you,. Oh and by the way "shoot I made one hole a little big"..Heck I would driving back to pickup another door if I was moving that fast...Takes me longer to load up for a weekend trip. Rooney

I try to live by the Wabi-Sabi Japanese philosophy and embrace the imperfections haha. This was my easy fix for the hole, just need to hit the washer with a wire wheel then buff it.

She's getting there...

Excuse me, but did I just step into a New York City apartment? I thought this was a Chinook forum.

Blue~Go wrote:Excuse me, but did I just step into a New York City apartment? I thought this was a Chinook forum.

Got on the road late Friday night. Made it to Nashville and enjoyed some live music for Xmas eve! Woke up early this morning to head just over the border of Mississippi to pick up these Toyota Sienna seats!

Ooh nice. I had a set of those, with swivel bases to fit the Ford pattern that I was going to put in the front of my Chinook. Then I decided not to do that and considered putting one in the "chairs area" of the living room so I played around with that for awhile. Ultimately, I decided to do neither, but they are very nice seats.

Blue~Go wrote:Ooh nice. I had a set of those, with swivel bases to fit the Ford pattern that I was going to put in the front of my Chinook. Then I decided not to do that and considered putting one in the "chairs area" of the living room so I played around with that for awhile. Ultimately, I decided to do neither, but they are very nice seats.

Why did you decide against it? Also, where do you get the bases for the ford pattern from?

Willywalderbeast wrote:
Why did you decide against it? Also, where do you get the bases for the ford pattern from?

I had a chance to sit in a Ford van that had these seats for driver and passenger seats. At first blush, I really liked them and/or I thought I would fit one as the forward "chair" in the living room. But a couple of things: One is that the bases that are designed for them reduce the rear rake a bit (because since these are not designed as driver's seats they rake fairly strongly. I wasn't sure I liked how that looked. Then too, the headrest is a bit high for me. Lastly, I realized that I didn't want to give up the power driver's seat controls (the new bases are manual). My current power driver's seat goes up and down, and the cushion will also power tilt somewhat. I would have lost that feature. So then would the seats be the right height for me?

As far as using one as a swiveling passenger seat goes, that sounded good but it's another one of those things that - after hemming and hawing - I decided to forego. Reason is that I already have the forward chair space, and if I put a swivel seat in the passenger seat position, then I kind of "lose" that furniture space just behind it (many rigs that use that feature have a door just aft of the passenger seat, so you don't have two furniture pieces butting up against each other). Plus, as I used the rig I found that in cold weather I liked to have the cab blocked off, and in hot weather I like to have the cab blocked off. So if my comfy chair is up there....maybe not so comfy. Also, it's so easy to just pull a curtain across the dividing line of cab and coach (vs. a curtain around the windshield and door area. Guess I'm lazy

Then I considered mounting one of them in the forward "chair" position. That might have been really nice, but...

1) Breaking up a set
2) Losing the storage/furnace space that's under the chair now (would be too high on the stock platform height).
3) It actually would have been kind of hard to even extend the footrest and/or tilt the seat back in that location because of the couch/narrow aisle.

Given their value (around $1500 for a set of the seats plus bases) and that I wasn't SURE I'd really like them (or like them more than what I could do another way), I decided not to keep them. But, they could be really amazing. Especially if they fit you really well (they didn't fit me really well, even though they are very nice seats). So I"m not saying they might not be fantastic. They were definitely premium seats.

Too, you have a door behind the passenger seat, so you don't have that conflict. And maybe you don't like to block off the cab. And maybe the Sienna seats fit you/other drivers well enough that you don't need the power adjustments. If all of those things were true for me, I would likely have kept and installed them.

I bought the bases from a fellow who was making them in Oregon, but I don't think he does that anymore. I believe U-joint in North Carolina was/is going to start making them (he already makes "fixed" bases for using the seats in the rear of a van, but of course for driver/passenger seats they need to be much more substantial, able to slide forward and aft, swivel, etc.)

Lots of good info Blue! I think they are going to be perfect for us as front seats. The swivel pass seat is a huge plus for us, as you stated with a side entry it works perfectly and I don't lose any space/storage. We usually don't block off our front can unless it's super cold.

Did you get your bases from MG Metalworks? Yea Ujoint just designed the front seat brackets, but they are $900 a pair! Might see if I can get a shop to fab up some brackets to use my existing swivel base, we'll see. I only paid $400 for the seats so I guess if I have to buy brackets it won't be to horrible. I see the seats going on eBay now for $1000!