Let us be seated, and chill

Once the floor was fitted, I proceeded to fit the seats properly.

Quite an easy job again, having to drill holes in the van and bolt the plates down (with suitable stress plates of course). I must thank my other half for helping me with this, she stayed in the van ratchetting the bolts while I was underneath holding the spanner.

Once the plates were secured I had to rebate the floor a little to allow the seats to engage and lock.

A nice quick job (taking stops for bad weather and waiting on deliveries into account) and I am very impressed with the seats. Very comfortable and very versatile.

They work as seats (of course), have their own sliding mechanism and recline and the backs also fold over to form a small tray.

Also to remove them all that is needed is a pull of a strap and lift the seat off the mounts.

Refitting is slightly harder due to the vans floor being different to a Sedona's, but it is still easy enough. And with the mounts recessed, once fitted there is minimal space between seat and floor, which looks very neat.

Seat belts came as part of the deal, and these were fitted to the vans C-pillar, again with stress plates.

Once the seats were in I started to refit the fridge. This is a Waeco Coolfreeze CF-40, which is a comressor type fridge running off 12V (or mains). I am again, very impressed with this piece of kit. Don't let the fact it looks like a coolbox fool you, it's very powerful - I'm sure I could make ice cubes in it.

Unfortunately this didn't go quite as planned. As the fridge is quite tall, it fouled on the seats inner arm rests. So after a bit of thought, and this being the only problem I chose to remove the inner armrests, and fit the fridge between the seats as planned. This works well, and as the fridge is so tall it acts as an armrest anyway. In the future I hope to recover the seats, so the armrest mounts will be covered up then.

With everything fitted I treated myself to a test-sit. The plan works, very comfortable seats and the fridge will be perfect for chilling drinks (and ice-creams) in the summer. And if I ever need to carry a load, I can remove it all and have an empty van.

Right now I can't wait to recarpet the walls and floor, but it's going to be a while before I can do that. This time I'm laying the foundations properly first...