Has anyone had any success repairing sport seat bladders on C5's?
The nipple breaks off and cracks away from bladder.Any advise please?

 

Ttt

 

There was a thread here not too long ago, where somebody used "Blood Pressure" Cuffs to replace the plastic bladders.

I couldn't find it to give you a link.

However, if you send me a private message with your E-mail, I will send you the PDF document that I copied the thread into.

I'll keep looking for the thread (while I am supposed to be working.... ).

 

Not that I have seen. I have the same problem, I cannot find a source to buy them other than the dealer.They priced them at almost 600.00 so you know where I told them to stickem!!! I did read a post where someone used small blood pressure cuffs.

 

Thanks Guys, I just wonder how to attach the BP cuffs to the seat back, tie straps maybe?

 

Here you go. Found it. Hope this helps....

I plan on trying this with mine sometime....(have a lot of other projects - trying to get the wife's '81 Coupe refurbished ).

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c5-g...ters-pics.html

 

Off to walmart I go! Thanks!

 

In my 2000 C5 Sport Seats, the side bolster upholstery on the driver's seat has a ripped (from normal wear) in addition to experiencing the rocking seat and lumbar bags failure in BOTH seats. (Why can't GM get the Vet seats done properly since I had almost the same problems in my 1990 C4??) In setting up a re-upholstery of the both seats and fixing the rocking seat and failed lumbar bags at the same time, I have a question for anybody that may have been down the same road with the lumbar bag fix.

The GM replacement for the C5 Lumbar Bladder costs $750 at my local Chev dealer; Eckler's sells the stock replacement for $550. However, Eckler's sells a pair of bladder bags for less than $100. My question is how are these individual (lumbar) bladder bags attached to seat back?

The individual bladder bag design reinforces the consensus of the messages posted in this forum on the probable failure mechanism being the plastic elbow that connects the air line to the lumbar bladder. The aftermarket individual bladder bags appear to use a side connection for the air hose. The plastic tee failure is reinforced in my car since the side bolsters work fine but none of the (back) lumbar bags in either seat inflate - you just hear the whine of the air pump motor. Some forum posts put forth a solution of using blood pressure cuffs (msg # 2281766 ). If the GM part cost is $1200 - $1500 for both seats, I doubt if anybody is fixing this high probability failure in the sport seats with the GM part which I suspect is why Ecklers sells an individual bladder bag.

It appears to me that the attachment mechanism for the GM part uses the backing of the "unified" four bag replacement part (2 lumbar bags, 2 side bolster bags) as the attachment mechanism (forum messages indicate six attachment points). If one uses individual bladder bags to replace the lumbar bags, does one just disconnect the hoses, re-connect the air hoses to the replacement bags and 'stuff' them in on top of the existing lumbar bags? The word "stuff" concerns me however. It would appear to me that if you pull the failed lumbar bags from the seat, the side bolster bags will come out with them.

It surely looks to me as if the individual bladder bag replacement is the only way to fix the seats but how these individual bags are stabilized inside the seat back is a question in my mind.

 

The side bolsters don't need any ties, they stya put just fine.

The 2 in the middle of the seat do need to be held. I cut the end off the original bladder for these & slipped the rolled-up blood-presure-cuff into the old bladder. It works great.