Fitting seat support straps

[Peetee]

New seat straps are a very tight fit and extremely difficult to fit with bare hands. I found it very helpful to use an old screwdriver with a notch in the blade to persuade the hooks into the frame holes.

[Shawn]

I wish I'd thought of that when I did mine. My fingers were sore and the air was blue for days afterward.

Very useful tip!

[Chris Morley]

New seat straps are a very tight fit and extremely difficult to fit with bare hands.

The hard way is to try and locate both ends of the clip into the holes at the same time - which seems to be the logical way, but it requires a lot of strength as you are trying to stretch the whole strap at the same time. It's much easier to pull & locate the right side of the clip first into it's hole (pliars can help) while keeping hold of the free (l/h) end of the clip. With one side of the clip already in it's hole the other side then requires much less effort to stretch and locate.

[Peetee]

The hard way is to try and locate both ends of the clip into the holes at the same time

My straps were so tight this was impossible. I did have to fit them one at a time - that is one end in (two clips) then the other end in one clip at a time.

In addition it did occur to me to make sure the clips have more that a 90 degree bend in as, should it slip off the screwdriver tool, your effort will almost certainly cause you to punch a hole right through the seat wall.

[Shawn]

I used old seat belt webbing to replace the stretched straps on my seat bases. I used the original wire clips and staples. It took ages, but has worked really well, and theoretically, they shouldn't stretch like the old ones.

That bit about poking a hole through the seat has got me worried now...maybe you could cut a bit of 3mm MDF and fit it inside the seat near the clip you're fitting to guard against slippage.