jack knife sofa removal concourse

[sm350bl]

Sorry if this topic has been beaten to death. Im thinking about removing the sofa part of the couch setup to clean / steam clean carpet underneath. anybody got any hints or tips? or links to a previous write up? 2001 concourse flexsteel couch unit. Thanks!

[Blue~Go]

I feel like I might have made a post awhile back. I removed the top pieces but not the base frame. I think the same thing would allow you to clean - once the top is off you have free access to everything underneath.

I took some photos in case I wanted to put it back (I didn't; I put back something that's more comfortable for me) and my sequence shows the following:

1) At the beginning I show using a flat spanner to remove some bolts by where the side panels meet the sofa near the front (accessed by tilting down the front door).

2) Using ratchet handle and socket, remove some fasteners that you get to by reaching over the back of the sofa and down toward the wooden rail that's on the side wall near the floor. The fasteners aren't on the wooden rail, but there is a tubular "back bar" that's part of the sofa and I removed fasteners from that near each end.

3) Next I pulled the backrest forward and removed some fasteners that are in the "flamingo leg" of flat metal that connected the back and seat.

From what I can see and remember that separates the back and the seat and you can then carry them out separately. There might have been something else, but it must all have been pretty obvious or I would have done more documentation.

This leaves only the base frame which you probably won't have to remove (if you do, that is bolted through the floor).

[caconcourse]

Here is a link to this topic on the yahoo forum (look at message 7 in the thread for instructions):

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/chi ... pics/17736

There are pictures in the yahoo files as well:

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/chi ... 1859600685

Clay

[sm350bl]

Thanks for the replies! It looks like you have to be a yahoo group member to view that topic or pics? Will look into it.

[Blue~Go]

I thought I had made a post on this in the past, but started to prepare new photos. Then I found my old ones in a "photos posted to forum" folder. So it must be in the archives? Anyway, here they are again:

(First three here, then last two in the next post.)

Click to enlarge.

[Blue~Go]

[sm350bl]

Oh awesome! Thank you.

[chin_k]

I think you may have to wait until the administrator of the yahoo group to approve you to see the post.

Anyway, here is Clay's well written reply on the yahoo group duplicated here:

On our last trip, I dropped my cell phone behind the sofa, and could not retrieve it after an hour of trying. As soon as we got home, I had to remove the sofa to get my phone out of the crack behind the fresh water tank. It was difficult so I took lots of pictures of the reassembly and planned to post the procedure, because it would have been much simpler if I had known what the steps were in advance. Here are the steps:


1) Remove or loosen the end panels. There is no need to remove the front door panel, just fold it down to the floor to get access.Each end panel has one short screw on the side holding it to the bed frame and two long screws holding it to the floor. I removed the left panel completely, but just disconnected the right panel from the frame. These panels cover bolt heads that need to be accessed later (step 3a).


2) Remove the bottom sofa section. Generally, the sofa needs to be in a "half-open" position to get access to the hardware underneath.


2a) There are long brackets on each side of the sofa, with a bolt that connects directly to the sofa bottom frame, approximately in the middle of the bottom frame. Remove these two bolts with a wrench or socket. The frame hole is threaded, so you don't need a second wrench to hold it.


2b) This is a tricky part. There is a bolt on each side which connects brackets from both the bottom and top section of the sofa. The bolt goes from the outside through a bracket on the upper section to a threaded hole on the bottom section. Remove these two bolts and the bottom section is free and can be removed.


3) Remove the top section


3a) There are two bolts on each side with locking nuts (dents in the side of the nut) that are exposed when the end panel is removed. These four bolts must be removed with a wrench on each side, or a wrench and a socket.


3b) In the rear of the sofa next to the wall, the top section frame is a horizontal pipe that is screwed into two rectangular brackets in the floor/wall brackets. There are two screws on each of the two rectangular brackets into the pipe. Remove these four screws and the top section is free and can be removed.


Reassembly is the reverse of the above steps. The whole process is easier than you might think, but harder than it sounds, because of the difficulty in holding the heavy pieces in place while inserting and tightening bolts and screws.


The remaining hardware is attached to the chassis, and need not be removed unless you are discarding the sofa bed entirely. In this case, there are the two big bolts in the front which go all the way through the floor and can be removed by two people if one is under the truck while the other mans the top of the bolt from inside. The other ends of the brackets are just screwed to the wall structure.


When the sofa sctions are removed, it is pretty easy access to the fresh water tank, water pump, water heater and associated plumbing. The small protective strip of "wood" behind the front door in my unit was water swelled and rotten from a previous "water incident", so I removed it. I took a piece of indoor/outdoor carpet about six feet long and 12 inches wide, and screwed one long side to the wood bracket on the floor behind the front door and wrapped it up around the water tank. This covered the plumbing and gave us a clean storage compartment, where we store our bedding.


I will try to line up photographs for the above steps and post them, to add some clarity.


Hope this will help save some frustration for everyone who has struggled to get to this space.


Clay

[SMan]

A little off topic but I have always found Yahoo Groups hard to navigate. I'm not the greatest on the computer.

[chin_k]

Don't feel bad, Steve. Some people have graduate degree in computer science, and still have issue with navigating the Yahoo Groups.