How to remove seats and rails from Ford Transit Mk8 Minibus
Welcome to our guide on how to remove seats and rails from a Ford Transit MK8 Minibus - the first stage of stripping our minibus for our DIY campervan conversion!
Keep reading for everything you need to know about...
About our Campervan Build
So we are super excited to be building our very own campervan - or what will be calling our home for the road for when we travel around.
Our goal is to keep the entire van build and conversion under £20,000, and we will be documenting every little bit of our van conversion giving you step by step guides and all of our top tips - mainly so you don’t have to endure our mistakes!
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel to follow our DIY minibus to campervan build, and be the first to hear about our upcoming episodes - such as...
- Van Buying Tips! Choosing the right one for your campervan conversion
- Everything you need to know about taking out plastic moulding
- Our top tips to remove any surface rust, and...
- How to design your own van!
Plus LOADS more!
Watch how we removed our seats and rails here
Tools Required
- Cable Ties - Gocableties 100 Pack of Black Cable Ties, 300mm x 3.6mm, 12" Premium Tie Wraps, Strong Nylon Zip Ties
- Pliers - Draper Redline 67842 160 mm Combination Pliers with PVC Dipped Handles
- T55 Torx Bit - sourcing map 1/2-Inch Drive T55 Torx Bit Socket S2 Steel 55mm Length
- Ratchet - Silverline 199195 Ratchet Handle Hi-Torque
- Ratchet Extension Bar - Silverline 196508 Extension Bar Set, 3/8-inch - 3 Pieces
- 3/8 to 1/2 Inch Socket Adapter - sourcing map 3/8 Inch Drive (F) x 1/2 Inch (M) Impact Socket Adapter for Ratchet Wrenches, Female to Male, Cr-Mo
- Ryobi Impact Gun (Driver) - Ryobi R18IW7-0 18V ONE+ Cordless Brushless 3-Speed Impact Wrench (Body Only)
- WD-40 - Multi-Use Product Original Spray Can 600ml
Removing the minibus seats
Rear double
- Start by removing the rear double seats in the middle at the back of the minibus.
- Simply use the two 'pull tabs' to pull the seats upwards to release the rear.
- Whilst pulling the seats upwards, shuffle the seats backwards slightly in order to be able to lift the front metal seats out!
Twin seats
Now time to remove the twin seats along the drivers side...
- The twin seats are similar to removing the rear double but they don’t come with the pull tabs.
- So remove them you will need a pair of pliers and 2 cable ties
- Carefully remove the plastic cover on the rear of the metal, where you should see a small red tab.
- Use the pliers to pull out the red tab to then hook the cable tie underneath - creating your own DIY pull tab!
- Use the same motions to take the seats out as the rear double- and repeat for all the other twin seats.
Note: The rear twin seats over the wheel arch are bolted to the side wall. Therefore you will need to remove the bolt before being able to take these seats out! You will need a T55 torx bit with a ratchet to remove the bolt.
Single seats
Time to get the single seats out along the passenger side of the minibus...
- All of the single seats are bolted in with bolts of which you will need a T55 torx bit with a ratchet and extension bar to remove the bolts
- Lift the plastic covers to reveal the bolts to then remove them.
- Once the bolts are removed then you should be able to lift out the seat in the same motion as the twin seats.
- Repeat for all single seats!
Note: make sure you have enough space to store the seats once you’ve removed them.
Removing the minibus floor
Removing the floor from a Ford Transit Minibus is REALLY EASY, once all of the seats have been removed!
- You will first need to unscrew the metal bar covering the flooring between the two wheel arches.
- Then simply lift the floor to access the bottom of the floor and seat rails.
- Our floor was split into two pieces and each folded up in half - so super easy to lift out of the minibus as well.
And if you're minibus is anything like ours, then you'll want to give the floor a good sweep!
Removing the seat rails
So when it comes to removing the seat rails, we strongly recommend getting yourself an impact gun to be able to remove them really easily and quick!
We initially tried using a ratchet and T55 torx bit remove the seat rail bolts and it was SO difficult and really time consuming! Therefore we would NOT recommend this unless you really have to!
Instead use an impact gun with a ⅜ inch to ½ inch adapter and t55 torx bit to remove the bolts - it's super quick and easy!!
Once the bolts are out then you be able to simply lift the metal rails out.
Now you can check for any surface rust that your base floor might have. Don't worry if you find any as we will be sharing how to treat and remove surface rust in one of our upcoming blog posts! And we will also tell you how to cover all those holes in the metal base floor, from the seat rails bolts... So stay tuned for more coming soon.
Overview
There we have it guys! That’s all the seats, the floor and seating rails out, as well as a good clean!
We did it over a couple of evenings, but it probably took us about 6 hours in total… including a few tea breaks of course!
A couple points that we found this part of stripping the minibus would be...
- The seats are fairly heavy to move and a really awkward shape!
- As we mentioned earlier, you really need to make sure you’ve got space to store all of the seats - we don’t, so we’ve got to put them all back inside the van for now until they sell. We just listed them on eBay for £140 buy now and already have someone interested so hopefully the seats and rails will get collected soon!
- Use an impact gun and adapter for removing the seat rails - if you don't have them then we would definitely recommend asking around for one to borrow or even hire to remove the seat rails! Because the bolts are really hard to get out by hand and more time consuming than anything.
Stay tuned for next week’s blog post where we’ll be talking through how to remove all of the plastic moulding - and don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel to be the first to hear about our new vlog releases!!
Comment below if you have any questions, and I'll be in touch soon! Or get in touch online here.
Helen x
Coconuts and Camels
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