Replacing furniture in 2004 Meridian 34H

[Mongobird]

Both stock sofas in the 2004 Meridian 34H were removed before I installed vinyl flooring. So far I like the flooring. But the sofas did not get reinstalled.

Eventually I found a sofa/bed that I liked and the DW found a recliner that she liked and we bought them. Now it is not clear how to mount them.

The old sofas had seat belts and were fastened to the floor. Let's address the recliner application first. The ring for the recliner is not intended to be used for fastening, according to the manufacturer. Apparently they designed it to just sit on the floor. Yikes!

I have talked with a few people who do just that, or use a former seat belt to keep it from flying on a rough road. My comfort factor with that is low.

The sofa is on a slide out, and it is deeper than the slide out. I may be able to address that be making a "shoe" which it sits on out of 3/16" steel, with the heel of each shoe bolted to the slide out and the toe overhanding the slide out on the inboard part. To handle the foot of the bed extension, I would have to extend the two legs for the foot of the bed about 3 to 3.5 inches.

I am not sure that I can run the seatbelts through that sofa, but that is not a big concern at the moment.

From a safety standpoint, I think both the recliner and the sofa should be fastened to the RV, but it appears that no one is making that easy.

Surely people have faced this before, and I welcome any ideas. Thanks.

[Phil-T]

If it's a tubular ring base, just get 2 or 3 appriately sized conduit straps and fasten it down. What could it harm?

[Mongobird]

Originally Posted by Phil-T

If it's a tubular ring base, just get 2 or 3 appriately sized conduit straps and fasten it down. What could it harm?

That would not appear to support the feet, and would not have the bed portion level. Assuming you mean the sofa.

The recliner is not a tubular ring, and is sort of a bearing ring, but the manufacturer as stated that it is not intended for fastening, only setting upon a surface.

[be happy]

If you really feel the need to secure the recliner, I take it you want it secure when moving not at location. Take eye screws (2) one on each side of the recliner and a strap that will keep it from moving. Each to there own comfort level on this I know our recliner does not move while traveling and its not secured. Call me lucky but I think you are over thinking this tie down.

The seat belts and the sofa unless you plan on using them I would just leave them attached and tucked away. As for the width of the sofa I know my sofa in my 07 meridian is about 3 inches longer than the slide. That does not seem to effect the operation of either.

As for bolting the sofa down. I removed the dinette style booth seats this spring. The forward facing seat had seat belts secured by so massive angle iron bolted down with 6 rather massive looking bolts. To remove the bolts I would have had to remove the metal covering from the underside of the slide. Knowing me if I did that it would never get back to the original spot, thus cause slide problems. I say this for if you are thinking about bolting think about the underside of the slide.

If you really feel the need to secure the sofa, either screws and angle iron or u shaped pipe straps

Good Luck safe travels

[Jim_HiTek]

I bought a swivel/recliner/rocker from Bi-Mart not long ago and it has the tubular steel ring underneath. The documents don't say it can be clamped down but that's what I do. Using the RV OEMs existing clamp. I flipped the rocker over and examined the underneath hardware and it's very similar to the OEM recliner I replaced. And of course, no one sits in my new recliner when the RV is moving so it's not a huge safety issue...I don't feel it'll break free when clamped and zoom all over around the inside of the RV during a crash. All of the underside mechanism of the chair is a steel frame, why would I be worried about it coming apart? So I say check that out and if you feel good about it, ignore what the manufacturer said, install your own clamp and use that. Mine loosens using a big knob/screw so I can unclamp the chair when I am parked so I can move it around.

For your couch, check out the underside of the slide. Can you add several steel rings through the floor? Through a 6" square metal plate on the underside? That's what many do when they are retrofitting furniture or adding seatbelts to a slide. Drill a few holes, add steel rings (maybe 3) accessible topside under the couch. Then you can loosely zip tie (very strong, wide, thick industrial type zip ties usually found in hardware stores) the couches non-moving steel frame mechanism to the new rings. That way avoiding having to use those ugly seat belts...unless you plan on using them for grandkids, then they are beautiful.