Help with Installing rear captains seats

I have my 2014 170 Cargo Sprinter. I just purchased two captains chairs with 7" swivel basses from shop4seats.com. The bases have 4 attachment points to the floor and they gave me through bolts and backing plates for the underside of the van.

Im not sure if I just want to install with what they gave me or use L-Track. L-Track seems like a good option for quick removal. It could also help to adjust the location of the seats if I want to add more later.

Either way I need to drill some holes. On the driver side of the van is the fuel tank. I assume I will need to drop it down to do this project (not looking forward to this). Do you guys have any input, suggestions, pictures, how-to's for me?

I have read through all the threads about using L-Track for seats and other stuff but didn't really find anything to help me with mounting near the gas tank. Thank you.


If you scroll down and select rear mount option you can see a pic of the base they gave me.
http://shop4seats.com/sprinter-seat...ack-captain-chairs/de-leon-sprinter-seat.html

Search my How To thread on fuel tank removal. With an emptyish tank it's really not too time consuming or complicated. I did it to fit a stand pipe for auxiliary heat, just remember to get that side of the van high high enough as the neck isn't detachable from the tank so you need a little extra clearance to get it out. Or, you could just leave it on the floor under the van.

Will you install safety belts/restraints on those captains chairs?

Just lap belts. The base has mounts for the lap belts. So 4 holes at the most. Still kinda leaning towards L Track. Just don't want to remove the tank. Looks like I may have to though.

Thanks for the replies so far.

To secure the l-track wouldn't you still have to remove the tank to secure it properly?

Yah. But if I have to remove the tank I would prefer to use l track. After spending the morning measuring and figuring this all out. I am curious about the spacing between the tank and floor. Doesn't seem to be enough to even put a backing plate, washer and nut. Can anyone confirm?

I managed four parallel floor rows of L-track on my 02 T1N with some judicious location selection and leaving out just a few of the hundred+ through bolts. No need to drop the tank.

Also consider that you can use an adapter carrier plate to connect the seat to L-track elsewhere. I needed to spread the load from my cantilever bench supports so there are 6" wide hefty aluminum carriers that bolt to the cantilevers in the middle and to the wall L-track at the edges.

So a carrier plate adaptor could even bolt into low wall L-track at one end if suitable floor locations were not available.

And you of course can skip the L-track entirely and use a carrier plate to translate the through-hole locations to better underside locations.

Be careful with the safety factors. A previous thread notedd fairly large collision forces. My van came with a removable bucket seat and the through bolts were 5/8" with large and quite thick steel spreader plates.

Dan

I have the integrated seatbelt seat and base they sell installed in my Sprinter. Mine is mounted closer to the center so only one corner of the base is over the fuel tank. I looked at removing the tank but decided that it wasn't worth the work and I just drilled another hole in the base. The integrated seatbelt seat base is really serious. It probably weights about 70lb.

If you're actually going to have passengers using these seats while in motion on a regular basis I would rethink using the lap belt setup.