727 seat rail problem solved

A friend offered these rollers to me the other day. They are gravity feed rollers for a huge rack where he works. A few of the wheel axles were broken in the first couple of inches so they replaced them and threw these away.

I was a little sceptical that these would support the weight of me and the chair, but they work fine. As you can see I cut them at 40" and then used the excess to double up on the area where the most weight will be during a flight.

Now I only have to move the carpeting, attach the rails to the floor, attatch a couple of flanges on the inside of the seat legs, and make some stops for the back of the track.

Not exactly Boeing, but at least I can get in and out now. The seat glides along like it's on ice. :grin:

http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h1.../seatrails.jpg

Nice...

How will you lock it in place so when you push on the rudder peddles you don't slide away?

One step at a time! Besides, I have no rudder pedals yet. (Yeah, crosswind landingS are a bit of a challenge!)

But, I'll end up making some sort of spring loaded mechanical contraption that will lock it up in the forward position.

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Originally Posted by Boeing Skunk Works

One step at a time! Besides, I have no rudder pedals yet. (Yeah, crosswind landingS are a bit of a challenge!)

But, I'll end up making some sort of spring loaded mechanical contraption that will lock it up in the forward position.

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Great idea!

As long as you dont go for a motion system next mike, you'll be fine with those rollers for the time being.:D

Is it a real Boeing seat you are using, from the picture I guess not but just checking.

No, it's not a Weber or IPECO. Therein lies the problem I had. Standard seat rails wouldn't work. I thought about a linear rail and block system, but those are expensive for the good ones. Thought about casters too, but still would have to have some sort of track system for the wheels.

Instead of all of the above, I put the wheels on the floor and will build a simple track(s) on the chair legs.

An Idea I had many years ago when considering using swivel castors was to router a narrow J in the floor directly underneath the centre of the seat. Then the idea was to mount a rod from the middle of the seat down into the J cutout in the floor and that way the seat had to follow the J. I didnt need to try it out as I was lucky enough to get real seats.

I like your new system and always enjoy seeing your updates.

Gary

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Originally Posted by Boeing Skunk Works

But, I'll end up making some sort of spring loaded mechanical contraption that will lock it up in the forward position.

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You might consider making a "T" handle that rides in a cam. Like a dzus fastner does. Up = clears the track, down = in the hole.

I'm thinking along those lines, but using a compression spring instead of the cam. Also having it mounted on a pivoting lever on the seat outboard side.

I'll mount all of actual locking mechanism behind the seat side wall with the only thing being exposed is the locking lever. Inboard of the sidewall, a horizontal rod with a spherical ball joint will be attached to the lever shaft and a spherical ball end attached to the spring-loaded vertical locking rod.

It's all in my head right now, nothing on paper yet as I have a few things to do before I get to that step.