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110/series LWB rear bench seats

BLRS sell seats as reproduction replacements for the longitudinal bench seats in the back of LWB wagons, both series and 110.

these are apparently 48" long.

anyone got these (or indeed, LR originals) and care to measure them for me? I need to know the overall width from top of seat back to front of seat, in the horizontal plane.

I've a theory that I can mount such in the back of the disco - there's enough width - either forward or rearward facing, and thereby get an extra child-sized seat. Probably forward-facing, and it can then be accessed by folding up the "small" side of the middle row seat until all the other seats are filled.

rearward-facing makes more sense from the access point of view, but I suspect the shape of the available space means the seat wouldn't be so good in use, as it would lack foot-space - the middle row seat back, being at an angle, would mean the seat has to be mounted too far back and would be too near the rear door. I did think about the ones made for the back of the Range Rover, but the back body of the RR is longer, and I think there wouldn't be enough room in the back of the disco. A bench seat, raised off the deck, would look to work quite well, provided the seat itself isn't too big.

If it works brilliantly, I'll sell the resultant seat frame that it stands on :-) Have to work out a way of making it quick-release, ideally taking its belts with it. This has to be legitimate, as they do this with some minibuses, I think. If necessary, the belts have to go on normal fixed mountings on the floor and the seat itself come out without the belts, but that remains to be seen. LR, after all, put forward-facing fold-ups in the back of the disco body (and I don't think the disco 2 is noticeably longer than the disco 1) and although they're not really suited to adults they're OK for kids.

Reply to
Austin Shackles
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I suspect looking at them it's the other way around... I'll get the tape measure out later and check.

Surf Ebay for some coach / minibus seats.. could save alot of fabrication and many have seatbelts included. I gets the only issue would be the bulky size... Other considerations are fold down seats as fitted in the back of a Nissan Serena.

Lee D

Reply to
Lee_D

On or around Sun, 05 Sep 2004 10:24:57 GMT, "Lee_D" enlightened us thusly:

most of the seats easily got would be too big. The ones from the back of the LWB wagons are fairly compact, and might well work on a suitable frame. I've no problem making the necessary frame.

Reply to
Austin Shackles

What about emergency egress? Forward facing would be very difficult to get out of in a hurry. The standard forward facing ones in a Discovery have an 'aisle' down the middle, so the occupants can get out the rear door.

Also (and I don't have a Disco anymore so I can't nip out and look) I suspect that climbing in the back even with the middle-row seat fully folded forward would be very tight. The rear doors are pretty narrow as it is, and with the seat in the footwell (IYSWIM) I reckon it would be hard to get in.

I've the BLRS ad in front of me, and looking at the P38 rear-facing seat jobby it seems set up to sit very low. You'd have more headroom in a Disco, so by mounting it higher on your frame you would possibly end up with equivalent legroom? It's a lot more expensive than a side seat though.

Reply to
Tim Hobbs

Twas Sun, 05 Sep 2004 10:34:58 +0100 when Austin Shackles put finger to keyboard producing:

I'll have a walk along with my tape measure presently. I have a 110 csw with original seats in the back.

Regards. Mark.(AKA, Mr.Nice.)

Reply to
Mr.Nice.

Twas Sun, 05 Sep 2004 10:34:58 +0100 when Austin Shackles put finger to keyboard producing:

the frames are exactly 48 inches long the front edge sits 15 inches from the rearmost edge whith is the top of the backrest. they are also 16 inches high, that's from the bottom of the base to the top of the backrest. this is from the seats as fitted as standard to my 1984 110 csw.

Regards. Mark.(AKA, Mr.Nice.)

Reply to
Mr.Nice.

I have just taken mine out for my conversion to a camper.

They are not anything anyone would sensibly want to sit on whilst travelling with too little foam under your bum, no back rest to talk of and nothing to support under your knees.

When I have replaced them, there will be armchair comfort of caravan standard upholstery, but that takes up a lot of space.

The bench seats are really a compromise, between load carrying with them folded out the way and Land Rovers ruse to keep the purchase tax down by having the vehicle declared a bus.

Reply to
Larry

On or around Sun, 05 Sep 2004 13:05:30 +0100, Tim Hobbs enlightened us thusly:

good point, however, the seat tips with the press of a single button accessible from the rear or front, and it's no worse in this respect than a

2-door car, where you have to tip the front seats to get out.

I thought that so I tried it. Put an old spare minibus seat in the back, shut the back door, and climbed in the through the side door, sat on the seat (just) and got out again. If I can do it, small anklebiters will find it dead easy. And I have side steps as well, to step on.

yeah, I looked at that. However, the nature of the space available strongly favours a forward-facing arrangement, see ascii-art below: ___________ _________/ \ If you envisage turning the | proposed bench the other way, _ | you have much less foot space. __ | || / / | || The can't go much nearer the / / ___| || front of the vehicle as the / / |_____|| top of the back seat gets in / / | the way, however, feet can go _____/ /____________| in the traingular-shaped bit |______/ behind the middle seat, as they do with the forward-facing ones in the disco 2. In fact, the ex-minibus seat (which is much bigger than a typical LR bench) is almost suitable, but it's only a 2-seater. I did wonder about using a 2-seater bench and still using one of the sideways fold-ups, but I don't think that'll work.

Reply to
Austin Shackles

On or around Sun, 5 Sep 2004 14:50:43 +0100, "Larry" enlightened us thusly:

remember we're talking about primary school kids, here. They're mostly too small to fit properly in the adult-sized seats... I doubt they'd be that good for adults, any more than the folding ones in the disco are - they're OK for short runs, but not suitable for extended use. However, kids are different - lighter weight and shorter legs mean they can sit comfortably in a much smaller seat than I can... and we're also only talking about half an hour, max.

Reply to
Austin Shackles

On or around Sun, 05 Sep 2004 14:20:58 +0100, Mr.Nice. enlightened us thusly:

excellent, ta.

that'll fit very nicely; and probably have more kneeroom than the forward-facing disco ones, to boot.

All I'll need to do is devise legs for it, preferably a quick-release system that allows it to be removed easily when not required, and invent 2 more seat belt anchorages in the rear floor. the sideways seats in it already will provide 2 belts the 2 rearmost anchorages are in suitable places, I reckon, so I'll just need the one extra belt. hmmm. cue another email to the chap breaking a disco :-)

Reply to
Austin Shackles

On or around Sun, 5 Sep 2004 14:50:43 +0100, "Larry" enlightened us thusly:

are they in decent condition? might be interested. Mind, they're probably vinyl, aren't they, and the rest of the thing is fabric - be nice to get matching blue velour one, but I dunno if they do that. Probably would if asked, at that - ISTR BLRS's seats are made in-house and on-site.

hmmm. if I do a decent job of designing the quick-release seat system, maybe I could flog it to them as a disco mod...

Reply to
Austin Shackles

Vinyl and thirty years old, the vinyl is not torn but not pristine either and a couple of the fixings are broken where the back bolts onto the frame. If you're not a make do and mend person like me, you'd be better off with brand new ones, I think Exmoor trim do them as well.

You'd want to paint the frames as well.

Reply to
Larry

On or around Sun, 5 Sep 2004 21:29:51 +0100, "Larry" enlightened us thusly:

BLRS ones are something around 60 quid for new ones, so I doubt it's worth making much effort to restore an old one for this purpose.

I might be able to persuade BLRS to make one covered in the blue velour to match the rest of the seats...

having contemplated the dimensions, I reckon it'll work pretty well.

Reply to
Austin Shackles

On or around Mon, 06 Sep 2004 09:40:51 +0100, Austin Shackles enlightened us thusly:

Phoned 'em this morning. Blue velour no problem, same price as the other fancy fabrics like the one which looks like treadplate. The only thing he was really worried about was that I might send it back if it didn't work, and leave him with a single, disco blue velour bench seat that was pretty unlikely to sell.

I'll keep you all posted on the project. If it works really well, I might consider making the relevant seat support for others to do the same thing.

Reply to
Austin Shackles

Hi Austin,

I would be very interested in getting two forward facing seats in the back of my Disco. I have the side seats and inevitably my second daughter gets car sick travelling sideways.

Where on the website is the bench seat at BLRS?

A
Reply to
Andrew Renshaw

My landie is going to have a luxury sideways facing seat as part of my camper conversion.

Reply to
Larry

Won't that make it a bit painful to drive?

P.

Reply to
Paul S. Brown

Probably depends on how camp he is :-)

Reply to
EMB

On or around Tue, 07 Sep 2004 07:22:10 GMT, "Andrew Renshaw" enlightened us thusly:

dunno. I found it in the advert in LROI... their website is a bit useless.

However, you need to know the following:

  • While they will supply the 90/110/88/109 style bench seats trimmed in the disco fabrics, they aren't gonna be too pleased if you try to send it back when you can't make it fit.
  • the seat frame is designed to be supported full-length on wheelboxes, and as such needs a suitable support frame. When I've made one, I'll be quite happy to either make one for you or supply dimensions for you to make your own.
  • To get 3 seats in the back you require the 48" seat which will almost-fill the width at the back, meaning that access is through the side doors with (part of) the centre seat folded up. You should be able to do 2 seats in the back, offset to one side, by using the equivalent 33" bench made for the
90/88 and still have rear door access, although of course that's no use to me. The same points about supporting it apply.
  • you have 2 seat belt mountings you can use, the rearmost pair of the ones for the sideways seats. You'll need to fabricate the middle mounts, 2 off, either for a 2 or 3-seat installation. Seat belt mountings are 7/16" UNF thread, on a captive reinforcement plate of "suitable dimensions" underneath the floor. IMHO, "suitable" means a minimum of 100mmx100mmx3mm steel. The reinforcing plate doesn't actually have to be welded on as far as I know, since all it's really doing is making it very very difficult to pull the nut through the floor, but it's a pain in the backside if you don't make it captive somehow.
Reply to
Austin Shackles

Easiest way to make it captive is a couple of pop-rivets.

Reply to
EMB

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