Removing floor bolts?

[VTSweetpea]

We've just started the process of removing our Concourse dinette seats in preparation for redoing the floor and installing some kind of club chairs. My husband wants to cut the large floor bolts (under the seat boxes) flush to the floor. Is there any structural reason not to do this?
I've read all of the flooring mod posts and see where others have talked about routing out the back of the replacement flooring in order to fit it over the bolt heads. Given that this sounds like a bit of a chore, I can't help thinking that there must be some important reason for not just cutting off the bolt heads. I know that the the seat belts are attached to these bolts, but that's not an issue for us since we had already removed the dinette seat belts because we never ride back there.
Am I missing something?
Thanks.

[Blue~Go]

Presuming we're talking about the same bolts, they are what hold the Chinook coach body to the Ford frame. I suppose it's possible that some of them are "extra," but unless proven otherwise I would want to retain their functionality.

I haven't done mine yet, but a few of the work arounds I can remember:

1) If flooring is thick enough, cut a relief area in the back of the flooring.
2) Use elevator bolts in place of the regular hex-headed ones.
3) Use a Forstner bit (or the like) to deepen the hole for the head (possibly in conjunction with a larger washer to somewhat make up for losing part of a floor layer).

A note is that up until around 2001 or maybe 2002 (?) the floor was made of two layers of (at least) 3/4" plywood back to back. Not sure if that changed as you went older. In 2001 or 2002 they went to a composite floor for at least part of the coach body (I have read that it's everywhere, and also that it's only in certain areas and plywood in other areas). If the floor is composite, you'd also want to make sure that the area around the bolts was reinforced, especially if going with #3 method. That because you don't want to be using a thin-fiberglass/foam/thin-fiberglass sandwich area to hold body bolts. (May already be reinforced in the bolt areas; just something to check on that era of coach.)

[VTSweetpea]

Thanks a lot for for your reply, Blue.
After further investigation, my husband determined that these bolts do perform two duties, as you stated, i.e., anchoring the seat belts and also providing points of attachment to the frame. Something to note is that these specific bolts are attached to small steel channel braces that are welded to the chassis, and they're in addition to other bolts that attach the coach directly to the frame. (not that that makes their function any less important)
To get to the head of the bolt that's just inside the door of the dinette storage box, my husband had to remove a section of sheet metal heat shield over the rear axle. (It was only held on by three nuts.) Since he’s able to remove the bolts, he’s going to replace them with carriage bolts - with the nut going on from underneath. We’re thinking this should maintain the integrity of the coach attachment points while minimizing the height that the bolt heads stick up above the coach floor. BTW, the coach floor does seem to be quite thick where the bolts are, as the original bolts are over 3" long.
Fortunately, we’re only going to have to do this to two bolts - one under each of the current dinette bench seats. The other protruding bolts will fall within the interior of our planned cabinet modifications, so we are going to leave them as is.
Thanks again, Blue, for weighing in on this mod.

[dougm]

My opinion on the bolt issue is as follows. The Department of Transportation mandates that any seat that will carry a passenger must be equiped with a seat belt. Those bolts do not go threw the frame to fasten the camper shell to the chassis but rather to fasten the seatbelt brackets to the chassis of the vehicle as mandated by the DOT. The camper shell and the Cab are attached to the frame using large bolts and large rubber bushings known as "body mounts". When i get around to doing the floor in my Chinook i plan to remove the bolts completely and plug the holes permanately. This is a photo of what a body mount looks like.

[Kirah]

Soooo... Removed my dinette today. Furnace may or may not come out tomorrow. A more urgent problem is a shin-breaking metal frame bolted to the floor, with seatbelts attached to it.

Looking for ideas on how to remove this frame and found this thread, but it's left me a bit confused. Maybe someone has done this recently? Is it safe to remove the bolts, if we can figure out how?

[Blue~Go]

Looks like the dinette frame is similar to the couch frame. That is, it's made of 1" tubular steel and through bolted to the floor. That makes sense as I think the dinette had seat-belted positions? As does the couch. (The Club bases are explicitly not for using in motion and are just boxes screwed to the floor.)

I don't see any reason not to remove the bolts and frame. It's possible they also hold up the propane tank but I highly doubt it since that tank is the same on the club layout. You should just be able to measure from something (or eyeball) and go underneath and look for the bottom "half" of the bolts. I can see all of the couch frame ones in this way.

The frames are just to make the furniture sturdy enough to (supposedly) be safe to sit in while underway. As I said above, the club chairs are not bolted down like this, and from what I have seen neither are the couch/beds in the model that has the built in wooden bed/couch vs. the Flexsteel metal framed one.

As Dougm pointed out above, these are not the same as the bolts that hold the Chinook to the Ford frame (and you should be able to tell which is which, but if not just post some photos).

[Kirah]

Awesome, thanks. We'll probably have a go at them tomorrow.