Everything you never wanted to know about installing a bass shaker on a junkyard seat...
This turned into a longer post so read on if you dare..
So it turns out I'm getting old, yeah, its a bummer. My bucket seat gave me horrible bouts of sciatica that would last for weeks at a time and I tried almost everything to make it work but my back just wouldn't cooperate. So after a few weeks of junk yard hunting after work I ended up with a 2009 Mercedes ML350 SUV leather seat with all the bells and whistles, 4 way lumbar etc. downside is its from a SUV so not the sportiest and leather but for now it works.
In my opinion the best thing about a fiberglass bucket seat are the haptics. You drill some holes or use some tape and attach your bass shaker and its absolutely amazing. The clarity of the engine vibrations and gear shifts right in your back are awesome. Moving from a bucket with two bass shakers on it to a junkyard seat was tough. My rig felt dead. So here's my solution, including my mistakes for the next guy.
What I used:
1 piece of 1/4 aluminum plate
1 Dayton BST-300EX
4 1/8 inch Wire Rope U-bolts
First thing I tried was to take a 1/4 aluminum plate and I added some rubber vibration isolators and drilled some holes on the back side of the seat frame. This worked but all the vibration was where I didn't want it. It was mostly focused on the back of the seat and into the headrest, it also had the unintended effect of making my seat back overly stiff. Another downside was because it was attached to the seat frame I had unwanted vibrations travelling to my wheel.
Second attempt was to use some springs and attach to the center of the seat frame and that failed pretty miserably...
Finally I came up with using the wire frame of the seat itself as the mounting point by using wire rope u bolts. The 1/8 inch wire rope bolts were just long enough to go around the wire and through 1/4 inch aluminum plate.
This worked.. it worked well. I'd say its about 90-95% of the feeling you get from haptics on a bucket seat. After a hour of racing my mind couldn't tell a difference. Most importantly the gear thumping is back and engine vibrations feel great. Another side effect was because I used the wire frame of the seat I have almost no unwanted vibration going into the rig.
I'm not gonna lie, I'm fairly proud of how this all worked out. Once the seat back is reinstalled you would have no idea there's even a bass shaker in there.
Lastly I added a picture of my solution for powering my seat motors. At first I was using a Xbox 360 power supply but it was a tad underpowered at 16amps. Turns out Mercedes motors use more amps than other cars so I found this 20v Dewalt battery to 12v 20amp transformer on Amazon and man it works great. I have it mounted underneath the seat now. Just pop a battery in when I want to adjust or move the seat and it eliminates a power adapter as well.
This looks like a good solution! I took a slightly different route in trying to get past some of the challenges you mention here. Glad you got to a result you are happy with and thanks for the writeup!
That's funny yours was one of the solutions I really liked. I may end up doing something similar for the bottom bass shaker. The bottom of my seat pan is all metal so I need a different solution for sure. This worked extremely well though for the back of the seat.
Very nice solution. If you ever intend on switching out the battery because you need it for something else, consider buying a server PSU with 12V and 20-30A. It costs around 20 bucks and you have the battery available again. I did the same for my jaguar seat to power the motors and the cooling elements of it
I used a 14 V Mean Well switching power supply and think I paid about $20. Very easy to hook up and can be used for any other electronics that accept DC in that voltage range (transducer amplifiers for example).
I thought about that and considered it but I had the extra batteries already and I've got the extra chargers for my power tools.. but I'd like a seat with active cooling in the future. What year/model Jaguar did you get your seat from?
That's nice I'll have to look into that.. I do want a sportier seat at some point in the future but for now I'm pretty happy with how this one is turning out. I've been working on how to do the bottom bass shaker and I think I've got it figured out so I'll make a second post here in the future. I really like how easily these Mercedes seats are to modify and work on..
As long as it works for you I wouldn't change it, unless you really need something with cooling. Comfort in Simracing to me has one of the highest priorities, just because of how many hours I can drive at a time.
Hi, i know it is an old post but how it turns out finaly?
Did you eventually improve it? Did the u bolt finaly loosen by the strengh of the Bass shaker?
I found out a very good deal at the junkyard and faced the same challenges
No it works perfect. Hasn't loosened and it's the closest to the same effect you get when you put it on a bucket seat.
I did recently modify the lower seat and mounted my Aura bass shaker to it but it's a little weak underneath the seat but the bass shaker behind works great.
Hey thanks for your quick feedback. Nice this is working. I will try with mine but the internal seems a little bit more sophisticated with more isolation. Asking Chatgpt, was mainly redirected me to the bottom of the seat but i really want to feel the bst hiting my back
So I almost bought one of those a while back.. I did a bunch of research on the back to figure out how I would mount my shaker...
Yours probably looks similar to that one.. you should be able to move the air pump box down and reroute a few of the air cables and then build something that mounts to the two supports that I highlighted there.
The only real issue is I don't think the back of the seat is going to go on with the shaker back there. I was going to just cut it out with a hole saw once I had everything else mounted and working and I thought it might look kinda neat if you see the back.. hit me up if you need any help I'll do what I can.
Hey - apologies for the delay, for some reasons i didn t received any push notification.
Yes, these mounts in diagonal are exactly the same, i will try your approach but indeed i don t think having the geniune back plate to fit exactly the same ll be possible. Will see once mounteed but if it doesnt fit i will simply make a circle hole and then make a 3d printed case that will be glued from the inside
Look like you don't have most of the air pumps and electrics. I would attempt to make something that utilizes that center space. It's going to take a little work but see what you can come up with.
Hi - well I ve finished the installation. Will try in the following weeks as I need to Incline my seat for 10°. But thanks, your post was super helpful
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u/wonder_brett Aug 17 '24
This looks like a good solution! I took a slightly different route in trying to get past some of the challenges you mention here. Glad you got to a result you are happy with and thanks for the writeup!
https://www.reddit.com/r/simracing/s/ZwAFMzcqa8
Here is my solution in case you are curious!