Baby Seat Installation IDEAS-

jcmcdowell · #1 05-28-2007, 08:35 AM

Ok- I'm not interested in creating a flaming thread here- I'm interested in the nuts and bolts of a baggage area installation and I know a few other are as well. If this doesn't interest you for one reason or another, please avoid the rants. Through the discourse of collected information everyone will have a resource to make better decisions.

Car Safety site:

http://www.car-safety.org/faq.html

AGE/WEIGHT of baby-

infants under 22 lbs 'appear' to require REAR FACING baby seats. After that forward facing is ok. The challenge is there is 20" fore to aft in the baggage compartment and the infant-to-newborn baby seats measure around 28" long. They are shorter standing up in the forward facing position.

BABY SEAT WEIGHT- The best I've found yet was a Eddie Bauer seat and weighed 10lbs. Maybe infant seats would be lighter and smaller- a different seat would be required for over 20lbs.

http://www.djgusa.com/product.asp?productID=2676

ATTACHMENT- the LATCH system looks the most flexible installation. Make sure the baby seat is equipped for the LATCH system. In the rear facing installation the LATCH straps 'appear' to run aft to the same attachment point s as a forward facing installation- but the forward facing needs a top strap point to keep the head of the baby seat from rocking forward. I installed nutplates in the baggage seat- so it may be possible to use the nutplates and install a threaded tie down ring in the nutplates.

CG- with 400lbs in pilot/copilot and 100lbs in baggage (dependent on your engine/prop setup) there is some room for growth. The average weight of a child at age three is 30lbs, age 5 is 50lbs. I think the useful life span of a baby seat in an RV ends around age 5. I'm planning on the RV flight bags that fit under the seats to help with forward CG. I'm slightly under the 200lb mark, but my wife is WAY under (yay honey).

LOCATION- forward facing seems pretty obvious- centered between harness straps. Rear facing gets a little trickier if the baby seat is longer than 20". I was thinking of a box built into the baggage compartment panel on one side to open up the space that could use the nutplates for the panel and could be uninstalled at a later date pretty easily.