How to make Cabrio seats recline.

[87Blue325iC]

If you have a 'vert or seats that came from a 'vert you have probably figured out that the seats don't recline much at all. This "feature" is designed to prevent you from reclining the seats back into the rear side panels, but the engineers went a little crazy with how limited they made the recline stop.

If you want to get rid of this "feature" and just be careful when you recline your seats, it is an easy task. Follow along kids!

Remove seats from car. Remove the plasic covers on both sides that cover the seats mechanicals.

See the black plastic "button" that is under the knife? Cut it off.



Once you have most of the material cut off, use a large drill bit to drill through the rest. It is okay if you take a little of the metal braket with you - you just need to make sure all the plastic is removed so you can easily pull the spacer out.



Use a screwdriver and or pliers and pull the spacer out - it may be stubborn. Here is what the spacer looks like removed.



Repeat on the other side. Before putting the covers back on, try reclining the seats to make sure they work. They may be stiff and/or won't hold the recline position. Try oiling the mechanism at the two places shown by arrows in the picture below. Be careful doing this, you don't want oil on your seats! Make sure to apply the oil to the inside of the mechanism - the parts that need oiled are sandwiched between two out metal brackets. This loosened up my seats quite a bit.



Put the covers back on and then put your seats back in the car. Go out at night, put the top down, recline the seats and enjoy kicking back and staring up at the stars.

[ejs999]

Great writeup for the ic crowd!! I noticed this plastic stop after trying to replace a stripped ic mech with a hardtop one.

Is there a way to put a modified stop in place (to let it recline and act as a stop)? ....perhaps remove a length off the slanted end after removing it and then epoxying it back into place? .....measure the seat at full recline before it hits, mark this point on the bracket, remove the seat, place removed stop on outside of bracket and shorten according to the mark and then reinstall the shortened stop (as it rests against the post, the epoxy wont be all that holds it in place)????

[87Blue325iC]

Great writeup for the ic crowd!! I noticed this plastic stop after trying to replace a stripped ic mech with a hardtop one.

Is there a way to put a modified stop in place (to let it recline and act as a stop)? ....perhaps remove a length off the slanted end after removing it and then epoxying it back into place? .....measure the seat at full recline before it hits, mark this point on the bracket, remove the seat, place removed stop on outside of bracket and shorten according to the mark and then reinstall the shortened stop (as it rests against the post, the epoxy wont be all that holds it in place)????

Probably would work. You could also just run a screw with a big washer through the original hole into the shortened plastic part. In my seats the plastic parts were stuck in place pretty well even after I drilled out the plastic tab, so you may not even need the epoxy.