I own a Wenonah Minnesota 3 and I don't care for the bench seats. Does anybody have any advice on how difficult it would be to replace the bench seats with bucket seats?

Don't know what is involved in going from bench seats to tractor seats, if that is what you mean by bucket seats. I am going to be taking some tractor seats out of a Wenonah Seneca that I bought last fall. I could take pictures as to how they're installed and I would gladly send you the two seats I'm taking out. All I ask is that you pay the shipping from Rochester. I know they used aluminum tubing as support for the seats. If you contacted Wenonah they might give you the schematics.

thlipsis29: "Don't know what is involved in going from bench seats to tractor seats, if that is what you mean by bucket seas. I am going to taking some tractor seats out of a Wenonah Seneca that I bought last fall. I could take pictures as to how they're installed and I would gladly send you the two seats I'm taking out. All I ask is that you pay the shipping from Rochester I know they used aluminum tubing as support for the seats."

Brian from Wenonah here.

To make this work you need a bucket seat mounted to tubes for the stern seat plus a bucket seat mounted to a sliding seat assembly in the front. The web seats are attached to the bow slider with different parts and you can't just mount a bucket to them.

There's a good chance that the sliding seat frame from a Seneca will not fit a Minnesota 3 bow slider because the Seneca is fuller in the bow and likely has a wider slide assembly. Make sure you measure the Seneca slider and compare that measurement to the slide tubes in the Minnesota 3 before going to the trouble to ship.

You should be able to cut down the tubes for the Seneca stern seat to make it fit on the seat brackets that are currently in the Minnesota 3.

In a normal year you could order bucket seats and a slider directly from Wenonah. This year we are so short of parts and manufacturing time that we've had to put a hold on most spare parts.

We cannot sell any slide assemblies or bucket seats at this time.

There's no telling when we'll be able to offer seats and slide assemblies again, so trying to make something work here on the forum is a great idea.

Brian

Thanks Brian!

thlipsis29: "Thanks Brian!"

You bet! Happy to help.

If you have the seats and the slide tubes for the bow seat you could find some aluminum tubing for the mounts across the hull. You could also find some light aluminum angle to mount on the hull to attach the cross tubing too. As long as you have the seats and the tubes it slides on any good metal shop could help you with the rest.

Carl

Not exactly what you are looking for but I put one of these in my Magic and I like It.
Still a bench seat but feels more like a bucket. https://www.edscanoe.com/cane-bucket-canoe-seat.html

RedLakePaddler: "If you have the seats and the slide tubes for the bow seat you could find some aluminum tubing for the mounts across the hull. You could also find some light aluminum angle to mount on the hull to attach the cross tubing too. As long as you have the seats and the tubes it slides on any good metal shop could help you with the rest.


Carl"

You won't need angle to mount aluminum seat cross tubes to the canoe. The existing web seats are mounted on aluminum angle. The stern seat should mount easily once the tubes have been trimmed to the correct length. (Still discussing swapping out the seats from that Seneca here).

You certainly can have a machine shop weld the slide tubes that are under your web seat to 1" un-anodized tubing fitted as cross tubes. The tricky part will be getting them precisely square and at exactly the correct width. We use jigs for this but the shop will have to work freehand.

Your existing tubes are held in place by four stainless steel rivets that fasten into the underside of the web seat. If you remove the seat from the slider you can drill out these rivets and reuse the slide tubes.

Good luck with your project!

Brian

Thanks for all of the suggestions! I have a fall trip planned and I'm just getting started trying to get ideas of what would possibly work.

thlipsis29: I'll keep you in mind about the Seneca seats.

Brian: Thanks for the head's up about the Wenonah supply problems. I'll ping on Wenonah about parts in a couple months. I store my canoeing/camping gear at my sister's place in central Wisconsin and often drive by Winona, MN. One of these days I'll have to stop by and visit

Surfman: Those cane bucket canoe seats look quite interesting

RedLakePaddler: You've got me interested in doing it myself, hhmmmmm

Thanks for all of the help!

Just FYI in case this gives you more options. It's kind of expensive if you get both the seat and the drops with fore/aft adjustment so maybe you just get one for your favorite seating position and let the other paddler suffer. :)

Hemlock Seat

thlipsis29: "Don't know what is involved in going from bench seats to tractor seats, if that is what you mean by bucket seats. I am going to be taking some tractor seats out of a Wenonah Seneca that I bought last fall. I could take pictures as to how they're installed and I would gladly send you the two seats I'm taking out. All I ask is that you pay the shipping from Rochester. I know they used aluminum tubing as support for the seats. If you contacted Wenonah they might give you the schematics. "

I might be interested in these seats, especially if they come with the brackets and hardware. Brian, if you are still on here - would they work in a Spirit 2?

scotttimm

It will be a week or two until I get around to this, but I will take pictures of how they are installed and gladly send the seats to whomever they will work for.

justpaddlin: "Just FYI in case this gives you more options. It's kind of expensive if you get both the seat and the drops with fore/aft adjustment so maybe you just get one for your favorite seating position and let the other paddler suffer. :)


Hemlock Seat "

The Hemlock seat looks quite interesting, too. And I was thinking the same thing about letting "the other paddler suffer". :-)

Like I said, I'm just researching possibilities and if scotttimm can take advantage of thlipsis29's seats, go for it. I think it's great that thlipsis29 is being this helpful!

scotttimm: "

thlipsis29: "Don't know what is involved in going from bench seats to tractor seats, if that is what you mean by bucket seats. I am going to be taking some tractor seats out of a Wenonah Seneca that I bought last fall. I could take pictures as to how they're installed and I would gladly send you the two seats I'm taking out. All I ask is that you pay the shipping from Rochester. I know they used aluminum tubing as support for the seats. If you contacted Wenonah they might give you the schematics. "

I might be interested in these seats, especially if they come with the brackets and hardware. Brian, if you are still on here - would they work in a Spirit 2?"

Only practical way to know for sure it to measure the slider tubes in both boats. The stern seat should fit if you cut down the tubes. My guess is that that Seneca seat won't fit in a Spirit II.

Brian

thlipsis29: "scotttimm


It will be a week or two until I get around to this, but I will take pictures of how they are installed and gladly send the seats to whomever they will work for. "

Thanks much, and no worries! Also - we zip up to Rochester from Decorah around once a month, so I could always swing by sometime. No need to ship.

scotttimm and johno,

I took the tractor seats out of my Seneca this afternoon. Front seat is 27 5/8" wide and 27 1/2" long. For some reason I didn't measure the width of the front seat tubing, but I can get that when I get back home. The back seat in 19 3/4" is the front and 17 1/8" in the back. Not sure if that will work for either of you, but I will hang on to them until I hear something back.