Driver's seat plight

Topic: Driver's seat plight (Read 1436 times) previous topic - next topic

Driver's seat plight

June 02, 2016, 09:40:07 PM

Hi all! We all have our vital accessories that live in our cars. Things like jacks, spares, sunglasses, etc. There's a very special vital item in my Thunderbird's kit - the patio cushion. White with neon pink and powder blue flowers, same approximate vintage as the car. This special cushion allows us to work the pedals...

Yeah, the driver's side power seat is stuck in the rearmost position. Made a spiritless attempt at rectifying the situation when we first acquired the car - no dice. Now I'm revisiting the issue with some more gusto. I can get the front two bolts and the 1/2" nut on the left rear of the seat, but I've nil clearance to get at the plastic nut cover - much less the nut itself - at the right rear of the seat. It seems clear the seat needs to move to be removed.

Electrics are good, I can hear the motor working in forward and reverse directions. No ugly grinding or clacking sounds, just the whir of the motor and the bowden cable spinning freely within its sleeve.

Anybody run into this and/or have suggestions? At this point, my mind has gone to pondering fantastical solutions involving destruction and lots of fire...

Driver's seat plight

Reply #1 – June 03, 2016, 08:21:13 AM

Ah, well. I was so fixated on the nuts & bolts on the floor, I completely missed the four 10mm bolts that fasten the seat to the track. Now I feel just a little dumb - we've been using that ed cushion for years.

To my defense, it's nasty down there. Like, receipts from the 1990s nasty...

Driver's seat plight

Reply #2 – June 03, 2016, 02:37:08 PM

It always seems like you can either get to all the seat-to-bracket bolts, or all the bracket-to-floor bolts/nuts, but not both. How many times I tried to get seats at the boneyard like that...believe me, I empathize! You did the right thing though. IIRC if one of the motors goes bad, the unit has a hard time working. I never got into swapping out motors or rebuilding them...for me, it was easier to take a trip to the salvage yard and get another track, but those days are long gone now.

So what good receipts did you find?

Driver's seat plight

Reply #3 – June 03, 2016, 06:32:34 PM

If you need one, I have some good power seat bases.

Driver's seat plight

Reply #4 – June 04, 2016, 06:20:10 PM

A parking stub from 1990 took the prize. Other items include a DQ receipt from '96, tow receipt from '97, free hash brown from Burger King for a "Revenge of the Sith" cross promo, a lost debit card belonging to the PO (exp 2006), a seven digit phone number (went 10 digit 'round these parts in 1997) for a guy named Randy who apparently had "VW stuff", and about six bucks in change.

Found my problem, too:

That motor's got some cojones. No damage done to the mechanism, looks like I can get it up and running again with a bit of speedo cable. Thanks 50RACER - First phase of the project is cleanup & free repairs, but I'll keep you in mind when I'm ready to take the bear trap off my wallet.

Edit:
Nope, speedo cable's too skinny.