Millennium Seats - My installation experience
Let me begin by saying up front that I have actually been diagnosed as truly having ADD, with a sprinkling of OCD. That means I have a tendency to overdue, or go into too much depth, whatever I attempt. I just have difficulty remembering what it is that I'm attempting. I also don't post much here because there's not much I can add, that someone with more knowledge on the subject, hasn't said better. Thus my "guppy" status - well that and the fact I haven't been a member long.
Here goes... I have an 18' Xpress Pro Fish Crappie, even though I'm not a pro at fishing crappie. It's just that I'm retired, love fishing, live 2 miles from Lake Palestine in Texas, and figure there's no better way to spend my time. The seats that came with my boat, while comfy enough to sit in, are bulky, get in the way underway, and are hot to sit in, during the summer months. I researched aftermarket seats and determined Millennium was the way to go. I ordered the B-100 seats from Grizzly. As I had a question or two to ask, I called, asked the questions, and ended up placing the order over the phone. I spoke with a young(?) lady in phone sales named Sarah. When I looked at my bank charges, I discovered I was charged $15 per seat less than what they are listed for on the web site. I can't tell you why the discrepancy in price, but I choose to believe it's because Sarah found me really sexy and super intelligent, and fell in love with me during our short convo.
I'd read here that most of the time, when the seats are installed, they are too high and put too much pressure on the underneath side of the thigh, at the knee. This was certainly my experience, so I tried everything mentioned in this forum to remedy the situation. I first tried unbolting from the seat the brace structure that the 4 hole Attwood 1002 3/4" pin seat mount bolts to and turning it around so that the seat would tilt in a more forward manner. Incidentally, when you do this, at least in my case, the bottom side seat rails that it's attached to, pop inward, making the reinsertion of this brace structure difficult, but not impossible. I took a large Crescent wrench and bent the aluminum L-shaped aluminum outward, opening it up enough that the bracket could be pressed back between the side rails. Pressed isn't really accurate as I had to hit it with my fist to pound it down far enough that the bolt holes would line up. You may find, as I did, that after inserting the bolts back into these holes as far as they'll go, you'll have to use your ratchet to actually screw the bolts through the inside holes. After everything was bolted back together, it resulted in me leaning so far forward I felt like the seat was trying to dump me onto the deck. So I ended up turning it back around to the 'dangle my feet above the deck' position and thought more about the situation. I thought about using washers, stacked onto the bolts on the rear of the mount, to tilt it just a little bit forward, but decided that would only exacerbate the situation, so I didn't. Furthermore, removing the spring, while doable, didn't seem like something I wanted to do. So...
After trying all the above and working up a good sweat, even in my air conditioned work area, I decided to go online to Amazon and look for a shorter seat posts. The Swivl-Ez posts that came with my boat were 13". I found some 11" posts at Amazon for a hair less than $40 for the pair and had them sent to me. I was under the impression that they wouldn't be Swivl-Ez brand, as the Swivl-Ez label wasn't showing in the picture and they were so much less expensive than what I'd found elsewhere. I was wrong. They arrived and are actually Swivl-Ez posts. I screwed them into their deck mounts, placed the seats onto them and sat down. Perfect!!! My feet are flat on the deck without adding too much pressure to the back of my legs. BE AWARE! When you sit down and the seat actually pops down into these new posts, they're there to stay. I can't separate the seats from those posts now. The posts seem to have become a permanent part of the seat now. I'll have to unscrew the posts with the seats still mounted, removing both at the same time. This isn't a problem for me, as I can't think of a situation where I'd need to leave the posts in position, without the seat mounted to them. That's dangerous. I'll simply buy two more seat mounts for the original seats, should I decide to use them again. These Millennium seats are so comfortable, I doubt I'll be using the OEM seats again.
Forgive the length of this post, but I warned the reader in advance. If I've left something out, broken the rules in any way, or have been unclear about what I've said, I apologize. If you find your new Millennium seats to high for you, do yourself a favor and just order shorter posts. - Clint
