Thursday, 19 May 2016

De-kombi ing

The time has come to get ready for the rock n roll bed arriving.  This means removing all the bits and pieces that make my van a kombi - seats, lashing points, rubber floor, seatbelts and seat mounting points have all gotta come out.

 - Seats - easy - they are quick release for crying out loud.  Although, the double seat has some weight to it.
 - Lashing points - easy - M10 12 point spline key.
 - Rubber floor - easy - gave it a good scrub and rolled it up.
 - Seatbelts - easy - M10 12 point spline key and bit of 15mm spannering



 - Seating mounting points - completely different story.  Not easy! *coughs* Not. Easy. At. All!

This involves lots of crawling under the van.
1.  Take the spare wheel out from under the van.
2.  Remove the majority of the plastic moulding underneath the van using a combination of T20 torx screws and little fiddly push on flimsy metal disc things (that sometimes break).
3.  Lower the fuel tank.  Let the fuel run down if you're thinking of doing this so that the tank is as light as possible.  Undo the bolts on the retaining straps on one side of the tank. As you can see from the picture, I used my trolley jack to lower it down and lift it back into place.  I've since learned of a far better way of doing this - replace the bolts with lon pieces of M8 thread with a nut on the end that act as a stop and a way of slowly hoisting back into position.  Next time...
4.  Reach under the van and undo the 17mm locking nuts underneath each mounting point (obviously 2 per mount).  They are quite easy to see as they are either side of the subframe running across the van.  That's a lot easier to type than it is to do!  You will need the hands of a 2 year old (again), the dexterity of a micro surgeon, the arms of Mr Tickle and either a large helping of patience or a large vocabulary of swear words.
The ones on the drivers side of the van are the easiest as it doesn't involve the fuel tank.  Unfortunately the majority of the nuts are located on the passenger side.
5.  Climb inside the van and pull hard on the bracket.  They are stuck to the van floor with something and I remember it being harder than I expected.
6.  Finally fill the holes with some nuts and bolts




Sorry, I don't have pictures of the underside of the van showing where the nuts are located.

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