Yes you can.

We’re talking about the adjustable armrests. The procedure is pretty straightforward but there is one important warning. Do not unscrew the adjusting knob. Please don’t. I did do that (on one of the armrests I got on the old skanky seat I bought a  couple of weeks ago ) and I haven’t managed to get it screwed back in. Unscrewing the knob (armrest on the bench, I don’t think you can unscrew all the way when armrest is on the seat) releases some part of the adjusting gubbins that appear to be inaccessible.

So don’t unscrew the knob.

Ok, on to the procedure. You know that you have to drive out a roll pin to remove the arm from the seat. It’s a little awkward as the upholstery gets in the way.

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Then lay the arm upside down on the bench. The knob is pressed onto the end of the steel shaft. There are splines, and it is tightly pressed on. This picture taken after I had the knob levered al,out all the way off.

I used a big screwdriver to lever the knob off.

Now that the knob is off, remove both screws holding the plastic trim to the arm.

Dig out the staples and the cover will come off.

That’s it!

This naked arm is going to a friend who has a broken arm, you know what I mean, and her old arm cover put on.  I’m digging into the other arm, the one that I unscrewed the adjusting knob all the way – don’t do that! – and so far it doesn’t look too good that there will be an easy way to get into the mysteries. The foam is cast around a plastic shell and a beech wood stiffener. Maybe more on that mess later.

Abel has been posting really good stuff here, Texas Vanagons.

Definitely worth a good look.

Bought one of those ubiquitous voltmeter and USB combos from bangood.com. Thought I would modify the vent on the fridge cabinet to install. But the old grill on the rear face of the cabinet had peeling paint and I didn’t like how the install looked. So I made a new grill from some 3/32″ thick aluminum plate. I milled slots, 3/8″ wide, on 1/2″ centres, 7 slots in total. And I milled a hole for the voltmeter/outlet combo.

The grill turned out a bit “gappy”, a bit too open perhaps. But as you don’t really look at it face on too often it’s good enough. The outlet and meter are wired to my auxiliary fuse panel under the driver’s seat. I thought about a switch to turn the thing off when not needed but I didn’t have a switch that would suit. I might add one later, but right now my big assed house battery will take any parasitic drain.

I’ll replace the mounting screws with the ones that will accept a plastic cap when I can find some.

I had the morning free to head up to Malahat Auto Wreckers here on the southern part of Vancouver Island, and I got lucky. There are fewer and fewer Vanagons in the wreckers these days, a big drop from the halcyon days of the turn of the century. But I found a tin top, year of manufacture 1991. Pretty rare here to see a 92 model year T3. The sticker said it was assembled in Austria. You know the story, the Hannover plant switched over to making T4 models and the Graz plant continued for a while to make both syncros and 2wd vans.

The van was in rough shape but it had the heated drivers seat intact, plus all the electrics for same. I had already scored the column mounted controller, housing, and relays some years ago but this time I got another set plus the wiring to the seat and the seat itself. The seat is pretty skanky ( and it’s blue, wouldn’t match my other seat even if it was in good shape) but I think the heating pads are salvageable.

Taking the seat apart I found that the wiring to the seat base  was broken. Almost looks like it was cut. Everything else was intact and looked stock so I wouldn’t be surprised if the break was the result of some pinching and flexing. Nasty stains on the seat pad, ugh.
  
The seat back pad is fine.

  
My plan is to clean up the pads, test for continuity, remake the broken wiring, and install in my current driver’s seat. The other finds at the yard were some plastic trim pieces and the rarest of rare things, the little light above the glove box with an intact switch!

Still haven’t got a production model yet, still trying things out. This one has offset tire position which I thought was a good idea, but looking at it installed I’m thinking it’s awkward.

It’s on Nathan’s van. Pic of Nathan’s van beside my van kinda shows the offset and that the tire is a bit lower on the ladder. Oh and I did away with the curved bottom on this one.

  
  
Yeah, that offset looks a little odd.

Hey, did you know you can just squeeze in a T4 grounding crown in the aft position of the pair of stock crowns just to the left of the fuse panel?

It’s tight, but it gets in there.

I mangled the stock crown a little getting it out. But look, look at the abundance of connections on the T4 crown 🙂

 
Not a great pic, but here is installed.

Addendum April 10, 2016. Drivers seat installed today. Simpler install, four bolts welded to stock swivel plate, 1×2″ steel box section fits onto those bolts, box section bolted to Chrysler seat. Pics at the end of the post. Oh, btw, sitting in the drivers seat is a big improvement over the stock seats. I’m 6-2, I still have a finger width or two head room to ceiling, and for some reason due to the seat adjustment or whatever, I get a much better view of the speedo and tach than I do in my van. This alone makes me want to have the seats in my van.

Addendum April 13, 2016. Some more pics taken by Simon of seats in his van, added at bottom of post.

Addendum June 14, 2016. Added some pics of the aluminum rails I made to mount the passenger side seat.

Quick post, I hope to show more details later. Adapted one of a pair of seats to fit on stock seat slider. There is a samba thread about this seat and the pioneer (link ) only used the Caravan slider mechanism in the install. Good fried Simon liked what he saw in the thread and bought a pair of seats and had the necessity of being able to move the passenger seat more, ie incorporate the stock sliders. With both sliders in action you can get a good range of fore and aft movement.

I just finished making the adapter and doing test fit in my van. The seat is more comfy than the stock seat. And it’s leather,  and has heating elements ( connecting the heaters is a chore yet to be enjoyed).

Here are some shots of the aluminum rails I made to allow stock seat sliders to be used. Note, the aluminum stock was left over scrap, the single holes in the vertical face have nothing to do with the install.

Laying on the stock sliders ( sliders salvaged from a spare seat, a couple of bars laid in the recesses just to show where the Chrysler seat rails will fit. I don’t have any more pics right now of the completed assembly including the slider release mechanism made to allow the stock slider rails to move ( the Chrysler seats have integral slider mechanism. Having the stock one too was really just to secure the stock rails). I’ll try to remember to get pics.

The longitudinal bars sitting in place. They have yet to be drilled to match the Chrysler seat bolts.