Update: Lightening Front Seat "Seat-Pan"

rambos_ride

I finally got to tear the front seat down to the skeleton today

The seat back itself is a fairly thin sheet metal on the curved portions and then there are 2 large voids in the center covered with a cardboard/fibreboard type material like used in the door panels.

For the upper portion of the seat I don't see much use in trying to lighten this area any further given the thin sheet metal used and the large spaces from the factory.

The bottom of the seat pan is another story. The outside "sides" have a 3'x2' 10-12 gauge support piece then the lower seat pan (approx 14 gauge) is sandwiched ontop of those pieces + at least 2 thin sheet metal c-channel pieces (thin metal like the top) that give it additional support.

Both lower side pieces in my seat have stress cracks in the steel (Not from my fat bum!) so I think I am going to tear out the bottom and make a framework from 3/4" box thick wall tubing.

I REALLY roughly and approximately estimated the size and weight of the significant lower seat pan pieces and compared them with the minimum and maximum length of 3/4" in feet that I would need (25' min - 50' max)

Depending on how it all works out I think I can shave somewhere between 10-25 lbs out of the seat pan by doing this.