For some reason, (coughCheepcough), GM decided the armrest designs on Express/Savanna should be designed for working stiffs - they don't need no comfort! The armrests sure get hard on the elbow/arm after a lot of highway miles.
(That said, their seats are vastly better than the poor old ford seats we had in the 2000 Four winds, though there are a lot of years difference between the two.)
Back to the project! As a quick weekend task, I had some left-over upholstery material from my rocking chair that I decided to use for arm pads. Here's a few pics:
Drivers side:
Passenger side:
Passenger side with seat swiveled toward the coach:
Build details: I used some 3/16" plywood cut to size, then mounted a pair of screws with epoxy. I drilled the hole undersized for these screws so they would have a bit of bite in the wood. The epoxy holds them in place and keeps them from screwing back up into the pad.
I used upholstery adhesive to mount two layers of dacron batting - unsquished it was about 1 1/4" thick.
The cover was then pulled down around the batting and tacked to the bottom of the plywood:
Be aware of where the bolts protrude into the base:
Mounted to the armrest:
While I had the assembly apart, I cleaned up a lot of sharp molding lines on the plastics:
Before assembly, I spread a bit of silicon adhesive to the contact points between the base and the armrest. Once the silicon sets, it should quiet the plastic on plastic squawk, which irritated me to no end.
While the finish work on the pads didn't come out a good as I would have liked, they will do the job for our future trips.
I had considered covering the entire armrest with the upholstery material, but instead decided it would be easier to make these pads. Thus, if they need serviced or someone in the future decides the mod is not to their liking, it can easily be undone.
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