Passenger Swivel Seat for DIY Van Build

Materials needed for this project —>

 
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I’m here for ya.

Seriously! Reach out on Instagram or YouTube with questions.

If you get bored, the video is fun too.

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Step 1:

Remove the 4 star bolts holding the seat to the seat mount.

Slide the seat forward and backward (using the normal mechanism) to access these bolts, undo them using that trusty size 35 star bolt socket wrench attachment you definitely got to make your life easier…

I had to use a size 30 bit and it still worked I just had to work slowly and carefully since the smaller bit easily slipped inside the bolt and easily stripped said bolts.

I would recommend using a socket wrench rather than a drill because if you slip while trying to undo the bolt with the drill you will very likely strip the bolt heads…as I did. I ended up spending over an hour just trying to fix the stripped bolt issue which could have been avoided had I just acquired the correct tool. Choose your battles, my friend.

Step 2:

Unscrew the tiny bolt connecting the airbag sensor wires to the plastic box on the bottom of the seat.

once the bolt is unscrewed you can just pop the wires out of the plastic box. You will simply reverse the process once the seat is on.

Don’t lose that tiny bolt!

 
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Step 3:

Mount the swivel adapter to the passenger seat base and re-attach the passenger seat.

After you’ve disconnected the airbag wires, you can remove the whole chair and place it out of the way for the next step. Once exposed, the seat mount has two little “nubs” (seen in the bottom right of the adjacent photo) on the front side of the base which fit through corresponding holes in the SwivelsRUs seat.

Rotate the swivel seat partially to access the holes for these nubs as well as the holes through which you will now insert the bolts that came with the seat. Once the swivel seat is placed over these nubs, the holes for mounting the swivel to the base seat mount are clearly located. Once the swivel is bolted down to the seat mount, pull the wire for the airbag through the hole in the center of the swivel, put the seat back on top of the swivel adapter, re-attach that tiny screw from the airbag wire to the plastic box, position the seat above the corresponding mounting holes and re-insert the original bolts into the swivel seat! (now that I think of it…it may have been the other way around: the bolts that came with the swivel may be for the seat-> mount and the original bolts may be for the mount-> swivel adapter…)

Now enjoy being able to sit backwards for long road trips to test your stomach! Woot!

Final thoughts:

I would be extra careful when removing the original bolts from the seat and base mount! I accidentally stripped two of the four and it caused me a whole lot of trouble trying to remedy that issue…pictured adjacent: me going at one of those bolts with a drill trying to drill a screw out that was completely stripped by my blind excitement over installing the swivel and stubbornness over getting the right tools…

 
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