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The other day I accidentally bumped my seat down just a bit, but when I tried to bump it back up….no worky! And front/rear movement didn’t work either. Oh no….the Dreaded Seat Adjuster Failure!! Would it be a smoked motor, stripped gears in the 90* gearcase, or broken harness wires?
Much has been posted here about all of these seat problems, so I removed the seat to see which issue I was dealing with. My first clue was when I wasn’t in the seat, the front/rear worked just fine, which allowed me to easily get to the nuts. Was upholstery pushing on something and fouling up the works when I was in the seat? Yep.
Once I had the seat on the bench, I fed the harness some power from my battery charger (red/white power wire, black ground wire) and worked the switch. Front/rear still worked, and if I wiggled/moved the harness going to the switch, everything worked. And the connector wiggled like crazy. Something was wrong there, but it's impossible to get to it, what with all the foam and close space there.
I removed the black plastic side panel to get at the switch, and once I removed the metal bracket that holds the switch in place, the whole thing fell apart. The foam had been severely pushing down on the harness and the connector for the past few years, and all that leverage eventually broke the tabs that hold the housing onto the switch assembly. Bingo!
You can see the broken plastic housing here, and a bit of that plastic on my bench.
In this pic the foam is in its natural resting place.
In this pic I was pressing down just a little bit with my hand, and you can see how much it moves toward the switch area. Just imagine when your *** is up there!
My first step was to trim some of the foam to provide some relief to the switch assembly. But be careful….there’s leather close by just above!
Then I repaired the switch using binding wire, plus I slid in a bit of ziptie to add tension to the wire once the careful twisting was done. I could have used an epoxy to fix the switch (didn’t want to wait on the cure-time) or possibly ordered a new switch (even more time, if it's even available...dunno) so I went with the wire fix. I originally started to use zipties to hold the switch together, but the fit of the housing into the aluminum seat frame is “zero”. As it was, I had to grind small notches in that frame just to clear the thin wire. (see the red circles and yellow arrows in the pics below) And after the Dremel grinding I carefully vacuumed the cuttings away so they wouldn’t get in the switch or the motors, somehow.
Below is the switch and bracket reinstalled, before the black trim panel is fitted, button, and recline handle reinstalled.
This fully solved the problem. This fix can probably be performed with the seat in the car, and certainly with the nuts removed and the seat tilted toward the console. I myself could do it, now that I’ve had it all apart on the bench, know how it all works, how to remove the recliner **** (easy), and dreamt up the fix for the switch housing.
Here's some additional info--
The recline handle is easily removed if you know to press a thin screwdriver in the slot in the back of the handle to release this retainer clip. You then wiggle the handle off. It pops back on with a whack of your palm.
The switch button is removed by gentle prying, one end at a time. I used the blue trim panel tool you see in the pic. You'll get two separate "pops" to remove it. It pops back on just as easily. No issues here.
The "fingers" on my bracket plate were slightly bent due to the downward force on the switch. You'll want to make sure they're properly re-bent to hold the housing tightly to the seat frame.
Here's the useful info from the service manual, except I didn't have "screw 5" where it's shown. My screw was on the side. Oh...the trim panel carefully fits onto that bracket when you go to reinstall. Make sure you pay attention when refitting it and getting it to clear the splined recline shaft. Don't force it until you know it's fully on the bracket.
Thank you Tracy! I had the too much foam issue that dislodged the switch from sitting on the seat. Cut a ton of foam away and remounted the working switch, even had to bend that retaining plate "finger" like you did.
Your pictures and text was a tremendous help!
Trimmed alot of foam away from the switch and harness.
02-26-2017, 04:14 PM
Power Seat Failure, and Fix. It was the switch.
