dsmiley
Gold Member
I've had back issues for 50 of my 72 years so the lack of suspension on the BX25 is an occasional problem. This year already I've been down 4 times so I thought it was time for some suspension. A little searching led me to a mechanical suspension seat which seems to have been sold by a number of companies with different part numbers but it appears to be the same seat and gets very good reviews. I found these p/ns Milsco/Michigan V5300, KM236, and Stens 420-700. And since I couldn't find much on the forums about this I thought I would post this installation.
My considerations were comfort and ride, ability to use as much OEM equipment as possible, and ability to spin the seat for backhoe work, in that order. The new seat weighs about 20 pounds more than the OEM seat so if I couldn't lift and spin it I was willing to change back to the OEM just for BH work; it wasn't going to be a deal-breaker. I was hoping to be able to remove 4 bolts to remove the old seat and use 4 bolts to attach the new seat, something I could do pretty quickly if necessary. I also didn't want to have to relocate the safety switches.
I bought the seat directly from Stens. It arrived in a cardbox box much larger than the seat and it was just put in the box with no packing material and no way to stabilize it so as you might imagine the box arrived all beat to snot with the seat just floating around in there. The tape holding the box together was broken so anyone could just open the flaps and look inside. The UPS driver apologized for the box's condition. I had read a number of horror stories about this type of shipping but the seat is so well made there is little chance of actual damage. The problem is that the seat gets scuffed up and scratched somewhat so your new seat doesn't really look new upon arrival. Anyway, mine cleaned up pretty well.
The seat can be purchased with a 6" glide assembly or without. With the thought that I might be able to use the OEM glide I went without. The seat had a total of ten mounting holes, none of which were tapped! I'm not sure if that was an error or they come that way, but the holes are sized for a 5/16"-18 tap which took care of that little problem.
I then used pieces of wood to find a good seat position and found that a ¾" rise in the front was pretty good for me so I bought some steal and fasteners and mounted it. I ran a ½" x ¾" steel bar across the front using the front holes of the OEM glide. After mounting the seat to this I used a short piece of threaded rod with one end sharpened to a point to locate the two holes that need to be drilled for the rear mounting bolts.
Thoughts - I am 5' 10" tall and the seat worked out to be a good height for me. I always thought the OEM seat was too low but if I had added the glide system it would have made it too tall. The seat is stationary so there is no front-to-back adjustment. Its location with respect to the steering wheel is also good for me but using a wider mounting bar across the front would allow a different forward or rearward location. The glide, it seems, is one of those things you set and forget unless others use the tractor so its loss was no big deal for me.
I am really pleased with this seat. I help maintain a mile long dirt road so this seat is a great addition to my little BX. My back is very happy.
My considerations were comfort and ride, ability to use as much OEM equipment as possible, and ability to spin the seat for backhoe work, in that order. The new seat weighs about 20 pounds more than the OEM seat so if I couldn't lift and spin it I was willing to change back to the OEM just for BH work; it wasn't going to be a deal-breaker. I was hoping to be able to remove 4 bolts to remove the old seat and use 4 bolts to attach the new seat, something I could do pretty quickly if necessary. I also didn't want to have to relocate the safety switches.
I bought the seat directly from Stens. It arrived in a cardbox box much larger than the seat and it was just put in the box with no packing material and no way to stabilize it so as you might imagine the box arrived all beat to snot with the seat just floating around in there. The tape holding the box together was broken so anyone could just open the flaps and look inside. The UPS driver apologized for the box's condition. I had read a number of horror stories about this type of shipping but the seat is so well made there is little chance of actual damage. The problem is that the seat gets scuffed up and scratched somewhat so your new seat doesn't really look new upon arrival. Anyway, mine cleaned up pretty well.
The seat can be purchased with a 6" glide assembly or without. With the thought that I might be able to use the OEM glide I went without. The seat had a total of ten mounting holes, none of which were tapped! I'm not sure if that was an error or they come that way, but the holes are sized for a 5/16"-18 tap which took care of that little problem.
I then used pieces of wood to find a good seat position and found that a ¾" rise in the front was pretty good for me so I bought some steal and fasteners and mounted it. I ran a ½" x ¾" steel bar across the front using the front holes of the OEM glide. After mounting the seat to this I used a short piece of threaded rod with one end sharpened to a point to locate the two holes that need to be drilled for the rear mounting bolts.
Thoughts - I am 5' 10" tall and the seat worked out to be a good height for me. I always thought the OEM seat was too low but if I had added the glide system it would have made it too tall. The seat is stationary so there is no front-to-back adjustment. Its location with respect to the steering wheel is also good for me but using a wider mounting bar across the front would allow a different forward or rearward location. The glide, it seems, is one of those things you set and forget unless others use the tractor so its loss was no big deal for me.
I am really pleased with this seat. I help maintain a mile long dirt road so this seat is a great addition to my little BX. My back is very happy.
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