CMC swivel seat base install to shortnose(T4a) Eurovan Weekender

[Joshwa]

I bought a CMC swivel base after seeing some of the other posts about it and I like that the seat height wouldn’t be higher. http://www.c-m-c.org.uk/t4-swivel-seat-cmc.php. You do have to email them directly at [email protected] in order to get it shipped to the US. They show an ebay listing, emailing them directly seems to be the way to go. £128 for the standard base + £75 shipping. The base with the safe is £147. I went with the regular base so I could slide a tray on the floor under the passenger seat that I had already been using with the OEM base. Speaking with CMC, the base is intended for mounting in a long nose van(T4b), but I found it easily adaptable to a shortnose(T4a).

It got here in less than a week from the UK to WA, so that was nice.

The quality is very good. It’s very solid feeling with no kind of jiggling in the rotating surface. It’s got a single lever pull that will lock the rotating surface in 2 positions 180 degrees from each other. Useful for choosing which side of the seat you would like the release handle to land.

First thing I did was remove the old base. On a T4a, it’s easiest to remove the rear torx bolts, and rear stop on the isle side of the base. Then you can slide the seat further back to access the front bolts.

First thing to note is that the torx bolts are smaller than the bolts that come with the swivel base.

The rail holes just need to be opened up a little to allow for the 6mm bolts. A 5/8 bit was enough to get the bolt to pass through. There wasn’t much material to drill out.

As well, the T4a seat rails holes are bridged to the mating surface as opposed to flush. I had some hex socket bolts I had tried, but they made contact with the bolts that hold the seat to the rails. I needed to use to standard hex head bolts in order to be able to clear the mentioned bolts and have no obstruction to sliding the seat forward and back. I also needed to add some stops in order for the plastic slider to not come out the front when sliding the seat forward. I ended up using some of the hex socket bolts for the rear, partly to create stops sliding the seat rearward. The seat will however not have any stop sliding forward.

The old base is removed by removing the rear bolts first. Then lifting the rear a little, to clear the rear facing seat anchor plate stud, then tapping the base rearward off the mushroom bolts. Then remove the mushroom bolts. Here’s the old base on its own.

The new base bolts down to the stock holes as they are the same between vans. I had a couple extra bolts matching the rear bolts so that I didn’t have to use the mushroom bolts. But you could if you needed to.

Going back to the side slider stop, the T4a seatbelt receiver is integrated into this part. The whole assembly is easily removed once it is unbolted from the base. It just passes through the plastic cover under the seat adjustment knob. Rotating that cover back, there is a factory hole, which I assume is where the T4b receiver is bolted on. If you had no other choice, you could cut and drill a hole in the original receiver. I had a same era Passat receiver that I used instead. This is just a mock up of the placement.

Buckle now in place after cutting and drilling a suitable hole to mount.

Here’s the victory shot. This took me a couple hours, but only due to working through changes I needed to adapt to the T4a seat rails. In reality, this could go on in 30 minutes to an hour in a later model.

I like it. A future modification will be to modify the rear facing seat bracket to still make it usable again.
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93 Weekender TDI conversion (AHU)
93 MV TDI conversion (1Z)
Weekender rear cot
Late model cabin air filter on 93
Euro spec bumper install on 93

[Zeitgeist 13]

Thanks for posting, I'm hoping to do this mod next year. We too would still like to occasionally use the passenger side jumpseat.
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Casey--

'89 Bluestar ALH w/12mm Waldo pump, PP764 and GT2052
'01 Weekender --> full camper
y u rune klassik?

[VAEV1993]

Hey all.

I'm currently working on this myself - though, slowly as I have these 30ishminute windows to work on it throughout the week (4 month old!)

The base shipped from CMC to my house in just a few days. It seems well made and very solid.

I was able to get the base mounted, and just used all new hardware to do so. The rear bolts from the original base seemed that they would work fine, but I didn't think the mushroom bolts were long enough to be reused. Ended buying four new bolts that were just a tad longer and was able to mount it up nicely. So, now I just have four of the same all around. M10 X 1.50 - I think I did 50mm length, but will double check. (flat washer and lock washer too)

Also sourced new hardware for mounting the seat to the base itself. As Joshwa said, for the short nose T4a, the hardware that CMC sends for mounting the seat are too short.

I am using that stock auxiliary hole in the seat belt assembly to better secure the seat belt buckle now that the lower slider is removed.

When I get it all finished...I will post some photos and any other detail that might be helpful.
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1993 Weekender - Hula
2002 Golf TDI
2017 Golf Alltrack

[ilja9]

I just ordered and installed a swivel base for the passenger side seat a few months ago. It took 7-8 days to arrive. You need to email CMC with your request and give them your Paypal pay account, and they respond by sending an invoice to your Paypal account. They had the wrong email link on their website, so I actually called them first. Super friendly. Looks like they fixed their email link since then. The base itself was really easy to install on my 2002 Weekender. It was just a matter of removing 8 bolts (4 in base rail, 4 on floor), switching the base out, and screwing bolts back on. I didn't need to enlarge any holes or do anything to the seat belt attachment. Took me about 45 minutes, but I'm sure someone else could do it in half that time. Works great.

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'02 Eurovan Weekender
'12 Touareg V6

[elise111]

Great to see these! Anyone figure out a clean way to mount the jump seat bracket? Or will a new flange need to be welded onto the jump seat bracket perhaps?

[Joshwa]

Here's what I've done to make the extra seat usable. I've cut off the latch, as it will run straight into the back of the seat base. I tried for a long time to try and set up a way to still use the latch. But the latch would need to be cut off and rewelded closer to the back of the seat for that to happen.

I opted to use a couple of heavy flat bar (simpson strong ties) to mount the seat. Not an easy click in and out, but a couple bolts in and out to make the change. The CMC seat comes with the captured nuts where the rear facing seat belts would normally latch to. I used those nuts to anchor the bars on the forward seat side.

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93 Weekender TDI conversion (AHU)
93 MV TDI conversion (1Z)
Weekender rear cot
Late model cabin air filter on 93
Euro spec bumper install on 93