On 12/21/05, Gary Lee, Vanagon Racks <gary2a@telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> As someone who does this kind of stuff....
>
> If I were welding in seat bases in my own van, I'd do more than a 10
> minute
> tack job.  It's a safety issue, you don't want the seats pulling out in
> the
> event of an accident.

I had this happen in a rear-end impact.

I was driving a custom conversion van...stopped at a light and WHAM from
behind. The Aftermarket seats completely derailed from the tracks as the van
moved forward and my wife, child and I stayed staionary on these seats...the
seatbelt cause my daughter's carseat to hold onto the seat and it only bent
backwards...

This wasn't due to poor weld, just poor workmanship (design of the sliding
track mechanism) of an aftermarket company versus a major manufacturer...I
believe we bought the custom seats from some local place in South
Florida......which speaks to the whole idea that maybe the shop you talked
to is taking the strength of the weld into consideration...

I have no experience personally with welding so I couldn't tell ya...

Dave
85 GL daily driver
85 parts bus