Michael and Tom have already been privy to my personal war with the drivers seat, mostly through my wife's poking fun at me for the endless pursuit of comfort. I thought I might share the journey with you and some of my learnings.
First the seat is a bucket style ISRI with air suspension. Looking down on the seat is a seam that runs halfway across the seat surface, and the seat was upholstered in such a way that that seam actually divided the seating foam into a fore and aft section.
That seat was a torture device for me. I am not exaggerating. There was something about my anatomy and that configuration that was not compatible. Also the seat at it's lowest setting was too high for my short legs. The only way I could take the pressure off my fat little thighs was to tilt the back way up so that I was actually pointed downhill. Well tilting the seat like that, guess what, put even more pressure between my behind and the afore mentioned seam.
Round one-remove seat by removing seat back, removing ISRI air controls for the lumbar, removing the electric controls for adjustment. It's about an hour process now that I'm practiced. So I removed the seat cover and found a one piece molded foam base for the seat. Since it's a 95, it like me, had lost some of it's resiliency. So using a serrated knife, I carved out the seat section and replaced it with some new foam I had sourced from an upholstery supply house.
This was better on the next drive, however the seam and two part bottom still was not comfy.
Round two - repeat removal process and add a layer of 'memory' foam to the top of the seat. Better but after a 1000 mile trip, the conclusion is that the seam has to go !!!
Round three - repeat removal process. Now remove center seam from seat cover by doing some major seat covering tailoring, also reconfigure seat foam so the bottom is continuously smooth. Better still, but another thousand miles and I am convinced that I have too much padding in the seat, and it's actually too hard.
So my journey began for alternative seating material. I looked into viscoelastic seats that wheelchair users use, air cushions that truckers use, fabricating air bladders that I could remotely adjust, fabricating bladders and filling them with high viscosity silicone. All of the research I did indicated the best comfort for sitting for long periods was to eliminate any hot spots or areas of high pressure. That's what the bladders do. They conform to your bottom and equally distribute the pressure.
I was in the process of custom fabricating some bladders when I stumbled across this.
http://www.therohostore.com/Products...HTRUCKSTD.aspx Don't confuse it with the cheaper version because they are not the same. The high end version actually has three separate sets of air chambers, to truly conform to your tushie, and the lower end one is a mono chamber. Not as comfy. It's a long story but I bought both, take my word for it.
Anyway, I flopped the cushion down on said torture device and the transformation was wonderful. However, with an air cushion on top of a seat that was already too high, I was really off the floor. I felt like a 4 year old sitting in a grown up chair.
On our last camping trip, I removed the seat AGAIN, removed the cover, took out some of the added memory foam and installed the Roho cushion on top of the foam. I had to make a slit in some of the stitching to allow the air valve and control to exit the side of the seat, but it wasn't a big deal.
Also, my seat had two sets of one inch spacers, plus a rotary table that allowed it to rotate. That rotary table was almost two inches vertically. So I removed the rotary table and one set of spacers. while I had the seat off. I had to remove the left arm of the seat to prevent interference with the left console, but it was a small price to pay for comfort.
Finally, after a 400 mile blast back to town this week, I prononce the seat down right comfy.
Moral of the story, if your seat is similar to mine and unfriendly to your derriere, then buy one of the Roho cushions. You don't have to go wild like I did and mutilate the original seat. If the seat is too tall, then lift up the skirt and look under there, for there may be ways of getting it closer to the floor.
Seat Wars
Threaded Mode
