Rivnuts: Okay for Seat Mountings?

Having snapped half the bolts holding the middle row down (300TDi), I was going to drill a new set of holes, pop in some rivnuts and bolt the seat clamps to those.

Is that going to be strong enough?

no but hell no.......... They need a chassis anchor point. What are your passengers life worth? And it could void your insurance

Thor1950 said:

no but hell no.......... They need a chassis anchor point. What are your passengers life worth? And it could void your insurance

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Except that they probably aren't mounted to the chassis. Front seats in a fender just bolt to the Ally seatbox with virtually no reinforcement.

It depends if seat belt mounted to seat.

Seat belts are through wheelarch and boot floor using standard hardware. There's no way I'm risking that ...

Upper (backrest) mounts are also standard as I can see the backrest taking some force in the event of a collision. Seat base just seems to sit there with 4 10mm bolts.

seats are fine on them, thats what defenders have as standard

belts need to be down to chassis

SteNova said:

seats are fine on them, thats what defenders have as standard

belts need to be down to chassis

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you saying the seats do not have a reinforcing plate under the floor, for the seat bolts?

on mine the threaded sections look like rivnuts where you can see the rim flat flush on the top..... what they are rivited into.... no idea

deffo not nuts welded onto a plate

They're definitely rivnuts in defenders.

For just seat mounts on rear seat of disco then rivnuts should be fine. All anchor points for seatbelts are seperate.

Rivnuts it is then. And I'll also fit some brackets on the front of the "seat box" to store jack handle, wheelbrace, fire extinguisher etc. so as they're out of the way when I'm running in "van mode"

Thor - I don't know whether to be grateful at your concern for my passengers or shocked that you'd think I'd attach seatbelts with rivnuts but given the IQ of an average internet user, it was probably best to check

Land Rover, in their infinite wisdom, fitted D2 seats with three nut inserts and one free bolt with a nyloc on the underside.

That's fine if you have nothing else under there, but those of us with sill tanks for LPG find that we have to take off the tanks etc to get at the bl**dy nut!

So, I have made up some 16g stainless discs with an M8 nut TIG welded to the plate, and the plate will be riveted under the floor pan.

Rivets will be fine, there is no pressure on them once the bolt is tightened up, and the disc spreads the loading over the floor immediately around the hole.



Peter

KeepDigging said:

Rivnuts it is then. And I'll also fit some brackets on the front of the "seat box" to store jack handle, wheelbrace, fire extinguisher etc. so as they're out of the way when I'm running in "van mode"

Thor - I don't know whether to be grateful at your concern for my passengers or shocked that you'd think I'd attach seatbelts with rivnuts but given the IQ of an average internet user, it was probably best to check

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Over seat belts here are attached to alot of the seat frames on our cars and suv's. Just thought it strange your seats would be different

Defender seats are a very different design as the load is supported through the seat box with minimal moment and should they shift your protected by the bulkhead backwards. I wouldn't personally use riv nuts to mount conventional seats. That's an awful lot of force

Thor1950 said:

Over seat belts here are attached to alot of the seat frames on our cars and suv's. Just thought it strange your seats would be different

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Different regs. We didn't get the slidey door-frame jobbies either. But we do have the belts cluttering up the rear floor while loading long cargo

ListerDiesel's idea looks sweet though. Might have a looksee as to whether I can get under there on the drive. If I can, there's a bunch of washers and nuts heading to my favourite welder - if you don't mind me borrowing your idea, that is

Thor1950 said:

you saying the seats do not have a reinforcing plate under the floor, for the seat bolts?

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on my fender it does, the rivnuts go through the seatbox on a double skinned section then through a steel plate about 1 inch square. seat rails then bolt to these rivnuts.

seatbelts are attached to god knows what apart from the roll bar.

Mine is a military 90 though so might be different to civi models.

So on US defenders are the seat belts attached to the seat?

even my bog standard vw golf has the seat and the seat belts attached to different points

KeepDigging said:

ListerDiesel's idea looks sweet though. Might have a looksee as to whether I can get under there on the drive. If I can, there's a bunch of washers and nuts heading to my favourite welder - if you don't mind me borrowing your idea, that is

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Feel free, helping out and making useful suggestions is what what the forum is about.

Peter