HELP!! seat pedastal mounting???

[Mr. Buss]

after a hard weekend of beatin down some chop in the senator, my driver's seat loosened up, i thought i would just re-tighten it,......WRONG!!!

i start tightening them to find out my love for beer and twinkies got the best of the seat, all the holes are stripped,.. so i get them all too back out but 2 to find they are 1/4" truss head bolts.??. so do they have nuts on the back of them??? furniture nuts??

i was gonna just drill off the heads of the last 2 bolts, which turn freely until i start to apply pressure to "help" them out... then they complety stop and theres no way im turning them. drill 'em and knock em through??

So if there anything thats supposed to be on the bottom side of the floor how am i supposed to fix it when its on the other side of the stringer lookin through the center locker/ storage area????


help???


input??



pic

 

[justincase]

My guess is that there is a barb type nut in the floor and they threads are rusted enough to only go so far, if it were me and i mean me! i would bust off the heads and let them fall.

 

[justincase]

Almost forgot, if you bust them off you can always turn the pedestal to remount.

 

[merc245]

You going to get that thing fixed before the 22nd. Let me Know one way or the other.I have a vollyball tourny that day,BUT will go boating instead if you are sure!

 

[justincase]

Hey Buss, ill swap you boats! ill get it fixed. bring it down here

 

[Hottrucks]

I know this may sound dumb but can you reach them thru the ski well I havn't looked at mine but if your thinking of just screwing it to the floor it's not a good idea your going to have to come up with something better than that...also is you flor soft??

you may try leaning the seat to pull the nut up but I would only try to tighten them if you do that since if you get it loose it may drop the nut off then ut oh we have a problem

 

[haftoo55]

You can break the bolt off to get the pedistal off. Then take a 4" hole saw and drill a hole right in the center of where your pedistal was. You will probably have to dig out some foam but you can then reach in there. You can install new 1/4-20 t-nuts through the hole. You may half to turn the seat pedistal so they are half way between the old holes. Drill 5/16 holes and install new t-nuts. It is not easy to get the t- nuts to enbed into the fiberglass but it can be done. I have fixed a couple of boats that way so I know it can be done. Then take and cut a piece of 1/8" plastic cut bigger than the hole [cut out carpet the same size] and silicone it in place.
Then replace the base being careful that you don't push the t-nuts back through when you install the bolts.
This should last untill you need a new floor.
This will not work on all boats but it should work on your Senator.

 

[dfarina]

My assumption (now remember what happens when you assume) is that there is something like this secured under the floor:

As far as fixing it, I'm no help. Maybe put down some decent wood screws for the rest of the season, I think it was made with a second piece of ply under the floor to reinforce under the seat. Maybe some of the guys that work @ Checkmate can chime in. Other than that, think about replacing the floor.


Never mind, Alan took care of it.

 

[Mr. Buss]

the floor is rock solid in this boat, beleive it or not i have spent a lot of time standing on my head trying to find any sign of chitty wood in this thing and i must say for a 20 year old boat its dry!! i poked arond in the wood where the holes are and its hard- the wood aint spongy at all, its almost like the t-nuts deteriorated just from moisture in the bilge over time??

 

[Mr. Buss]

I know this may sound dumb but can you reach them thru the ski well I havn't looked at mine but if your thinking of just screwing it to the floor it's not a good idea your going to have to come up with something better than that...also is you flor soft??

jeff
no im not gonna screw it, and as for the ski-well that was the first thing i thought of, then i reached in there and yup theres a stringer there.....then the cussin' started.....

 

[dfarina]

I don't know if the original t-nuts were stainless, if not, they go south pretty quick in a damp environment (Think of all those years of a driver in wet swim trunks). Be sure to put stainless ones in. Alan has got the best advice. He would know, he's been putting boats together (or back together) for a while.

 

[Mr. Buss]

You going to get that thing fixed before the 22nd. Let me Know one way or the other.I have a vollyball tourny that day,BUT will go boating instead if you are sure!

unless somthing major happens i should be there..

if worse come to worse this might be a solution...

 

[zstevens]

what about pry up on seat base (to tput tension on the nut ,which ever style it may be , so you can still push w/ force on screw head . opposite force on seat base will help hold nut in place & put tension on screw . you get me ?

 

[jallen355]

Yea, hottrucks' got the hot idea here. I don't know that I'd use T-nuts again, though. Some 5200 will glue up any fastner system you can come up with in place. Then reinstall the pdestal in the original holes. If you reindex it, you might find that your seat is slightly turned one way or the other when you go to lock it down into driving position. I'm assuming they swivel.

 

[merc245]

Mr. Buss, I gotten out of my vollyball commitment.That weekend is the Selfridge Air Show.The whole lake will be a happening place.A few yrs ago a date and I timed it just right and had lunch in the boat as the blue angels were flying directly over head!.

Only thing is you want to stay away from S.A.B. I-94 should be alright, But you do want to use the metro beach ramp. Its at the ft of 16 mile(metro park causeway)

Hope you make it and see if you can get any of the other stiffs to come along.Once you try it you'll like it!