Smooth chair rotation

Tech Tip - rotating chairs.

Do you hear a grinding sound when you swivel in your captains chair? Have you sprayed and lubricated the mechanism, but to no avail?

If you get down there with a torch, you will see that the lever that you pull to unlock the chair from the driving position has a spring, and the spring pulls the metal rod into a notch in the baseplate when the chair is in the forward driving position - with a satisfying clunk! But when not in the driving position, the same spring pulls the rod onto the edge of the baseplate, and thats what causes the grinding noise. It is not unusual on a 20 yr old chair to see the rod almost worn through, and they can and do break off, needing a messy repair.

So try this - you see the spring? It hooks over a small pin on the back underside of the base plate - it's the work of seconds to unhook it. Now the rod is no longer under tension, and the grinding sound will lessen - a lot. But the rod is still under the force of gravity and is still rubbing against the edge of the baseplate - better, but not perfect.

Now take the loose end of the spring and hook it over the front edge of the baseplate - so it is now 180 degrees opposite to where it was. It is now holding the rod away from the edge. Now take a swivel - silence! If you still hear a sound then it's the ball bearings between the bases plates, but unlike the rod, lubrication here will make it near silent - but in my experience all the noise comes from the rod - it's bare metal on metal.

It is now just a matter of reconnecting the spring before setting off driving. Just add the job to your pre-drive checklist. - lock fridge, close rooflight, secure chair. 

I appreciate not all people will want the faffing around of this - but if you spend a lot of time in the van, perched on the captains chair, working on the table, then you will be very happy to be suddenly swivelling in silence - I know I was! Once you know what to do - it only takes 10 seconds - and it saves a lot of wear and tear on the swivel locking mechanism.

Like · Comment · 94

• Jon Avery, Christian Skeels, Lois Osborne-Carey and 6 others like this.
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  Ron Bentham Before - normal opration.

  

  Yesterday at 11:28 · Edited · Like
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  Ron Bentham After - spring hooked over front edge of chair - holding rod away from baseplate. Silence!

  

  Yesterday at 11:29 · Edited · Like
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  Ron Bentham It's hard to see on this photo - you have to really zoom in...but you can see the shiny rough edge of the baseplate, and already on mine, there is about 2mm already worn away from the arm rod metal. In this photo the arm is being held off.

  

  Yesterday at 11:27 · Like
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  Ron Bentham I've been told to swivel .....