Sprinter Center Jump Seat

The sprinter has enough space between the front seats to squeeze in an extra seat, and possibly a passenger. After much searching, I found a nice folding seat that comes from the center second row seat in a Ford Explorer. It has it’s own seatbelt, which makes installation a lot easier, and there’s no seatbelt hanging from the ceiling. When not needed, the seat can fold down flat and becomes a center console ( after adding console-like accessories).

Adam helped me build the first stand for it for mounting the seat. It’s a nice solid stand that’s bolted to the floor. After a week road trip, we came to the realization that it would be nice if the seat was easily removable for when only 2 people are traveling. The seat blocks easy access to the front seats. You can jump over it when it’s folded down, but most of the time you have to walk outside to access the front seats.
I couldn’t find any removable seat tracks that had the mating hardware on the seat side. A good solution for easy removable seat that didn’t require too much custom fabrication is to either use aluminum L track, or E track. L track is used in airplanes to attach the seats, allowing them to slide the seats closer together when they want to pack us in tighter. E track is mostly used as tie down. I like the E track better, because it seems easier to just drop the seat into place, and more easily releasable. L track requires you to drop and slide into place, and other than the custom aircraft seat attachments, I couldn’t find suitable quick release brackets.

The design I’ve decided on is a custom approach, using hook-rotate-locked with pin attachment.  It should be easy to construct from plate steel, strong, and not as noticeable when the seat is removed.

The following image shows how the seat can be placed in the forward facing, or reverse facing direction.  It uses pins as the attachment points.

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