Seat mounting - adding some rubber?

[twobone]

Would adding some rubber grommets or pads between the seat rail and the chassis rails on the mounting bolts to dampen vibration risk the structural rigidity of the seat mounting itself?

 

I'm always on the search for ways to increase highway comfort to make long trips less taxing.

 

I would not choose this option if it creates a greater risk of the seat tearing out in an accident.

[MHKflyer52]

I would not mount the seat rail that way as you have already identified the risk of it tearing out in an accident.

You can always get denser foam and added it to the padding in the seat to provide more support with out increasing the size of the padding. Here is a link to a company that makes special seat cushions for aircraft and I can say form experience they make a very good product. http://www.oregonaero.com/products

 

:driving:

[jlumba81]

I have the stock caterham cloth seat and just used some 3m adhesive with Confor foam. I used 1" blue foam in the seat back and it cut down a lot of the road vibrations. Good enough that I have done two 1500 mile round trips in the 7.

[twobone]

Are you guys talking about foam over the seat or installed inside?

[JohnK]

My approach is to put something between the chassis and seat mounts that absorbs high frequency vibrations. Reid sells Barry Bonds mounts and Grainger sells something similar (see Vibration Isolators, in their index "2-pc Center Bonded Mounts"). Both designs sandwich rubber grommets to damp vibration, but in a way that contains the grommet so that, even if the grommet completely disintegrated, the parts would not come apart - they would rattle around a lot, of course ;-). The Bonds mounts in particular can support quite a bit of load, and both are very quieting. In addition to the quieting, high freqs cause part failures in things like muffler mounts, instrument sensors, and instruments. Ask if you'd like pics.

[jlumba81]

I put the foam under the cloth.

[danilo]

Does not Your Cat have the typical Caterham/Lotus seat mounting method?? A pair of Ali U channels under the floor pans with a Pair of holes drilled in each to accept the Seat rail mounts?

Very similar to most Any aircraft seat mount setup.

Better though, in that in an Aircraft the Seat belt anchors are equally fragile.

 

In which case Your notion of rubber grommets on those 4 bolts is a good try at solving your immediate problem. Given the inherently fragile nature of the setup to begin with, it's unlikely the addition of your rubber isolators could/would make it significantly more so.

OR that Not doing your 'Fix' would improve it either.

[rx7locost]

I really didn't bother about the seat tearing out in an accident. If it comes loose for whatever reason, it can't go down, back, left or right due to obvious car constraints. The belt system is mounted to the chassis and this is what constrains the driver, not the seat. The seat is only maybe what? 20 lbs at most? this is no more than a 20# heavier driver. In fact, my seat back is secured at the top rail oif the rear bulkhead with a hinge. The seat bottom is wedged under that and has a wooden cleat that fits behind the lateral floor frame rail. The way I see it is: My seat isn't going anywhere if I'm not going anywhere.