Broken seat blues

52wej · Mar 13, 2016

After 900+ hours and 12 years of bouncing over the creeks and through the woods the main support shaft on the seat suspension of my Century 2535 decided to break on both sides.

To be honest the seat suspension, as has been noted in other posts, was not that good and I am trying to decide what is the best plan of action. Do I try to buy a replacement suspension component or do I look at some other seat alternative? I weigh about 230 and most of the seats I reviewed are rated for more than that. I wonder what experiences others may have had with these older seats. Suggestions and comments would be most welcome. Willie Jones

Zork · Apr 10, 2016

My seat has been fine, but I only have 350+ hours. I would definitely replace with a suspension seat- I will never go back to rigid. Have you tried Northern tool?

52wej · Apr 11, 2016

YEs I did look at a lot of the seats that Northern had and may get one eventually. What I discovered that there were two shafts that supported the seat and were supposed to pivot to allow the seat to move up and down. One was welded to hold it in place while the other had pins in the end. The welded shaft broke on both sides between the sled rail mechanism because the tolerances were too tight and there was no way to grease it to prevent seizing which led to the fatigue fracture of the shaft.

I removed the seat and the support mechanism so I could drive the support shafts out of the sleeve around which they pivoted. (Took a lot of soaking with Power Blaster) For the one that had pins on each end I sanded it slightly in a drill press to make it looser so that it would pivot freely. I made an new shaft for the broken one using a drill press and a file to reduce the diameter of a bolt so it would fit the holes. I also had to grind off all of the old welds so the shaft would fit on each of the support frames. It works now, but is MUCH looser and wiggly. Still that was cheaper than a new seat. I will probably replace with a suspension seat after I do more research to get one with the correct bolt hole patterns. I have been snaking logs out of the woods so the suspension is getting a good work out. Willie Jones

5030 · Apr 11, 2016

Easy answer... Seats.com or K&M Manufacturing. Upgrade to a real air ride seat or replace your suspension. Northern is overpriced and gets theirs from Seats.com anyway.