Friggen broken seat

[rammstein]

What a lovely project replacing my seat shocks has turned out to be. Turns out you need to be a gorilla to compress the shocks, so I had to go to home depot to buy a C-Clamp. When I got there, I found a really cool clamp gun thingy and bought it instead. It worked fine on the vertical adjusters, but the thing is so bulky that it doesn't work for the backrest, so I had to stop there tonight and I'll have to go to home depot AGAIN tomorrow to buy something that will work. I guess my choice of clamp wasn't as slick as I had anticipated.

So then I figured "hey, lets see how nice the bottom adjuster is!" I put the seat on the ground, sat on it, and the vertical adjusters do nothing. Nothing. I have no idea why not, everything seems to be connected.

Then, the icing on the cake, the left bolster attachment point is broken off of the seat frame. There is a spot where it is supposed to be welded to the frame of the seat, but the weld apparently gave up.

So now what? Can I take it somewhere to get it welded back on? Who does that, a muffler shop?

If I had known what I was going to encounter on this voyage, I would have just bought some new sparco seats or something. Now I am $180 deep into a seat with a broken a weld and a seemingly busted vertical adjuster, and the loose bar thingy I mentioned on another thread. Am I just having bad luck? I just bought this car, and it already consumed the A/C compressor and needed an oxygen sensor that I didn't anticipate. I thought it was going to be close to perfect. Ok, no more venting.

Can anybody help me out here with some advice or at least a soothing voice?

[BrewCity11]

The set of sport seats i'm freshening up now has the same weld problem. Not completely cracked yet, but will be getting it fixed anyways.

Grind all rust off, take somewhere to have welded, then coat in rustoleum black. (or por 15)

[rammstein]

GOD DAMMIT!!!!!!!! How the hell does a person install these backrest shocks. I've tried for TWO nights. I've bought 2 different clamps trying to compress these bastards into place. Has anybody on here ever successfully done this? How did you do it? How? I don't get it. I used to think I was smart.... starting to feel pretty dumb.

[td325ic]

Yes, I've replaced the shocks a number of times. It's easy with the right tools.

You have the right idea using a clamp to compress the shock in order to slide them onto the pins on the mechanism.

Have you removed the mechanisms from the seat? It's easiest to remove the mechanisms from the seat first.

Buy this clamp from Home Depot:
(The shock in the photo is like new and is easily compressed with the clamp.
Take out the pin on the bottom of the clamp so it opens wider.)








Here's some instructions on how to take apart the sport seat:
























Good luck, PM me if you have any specific questions

[slo325i]

Damn... i think a s52 swap is easier than a seat fix, no???

[rammstein]

Dude- thank you SO much. Actually, I bought that VERY tool last night. It worked like a charm on the verical adjusters. I was trying to replace the backrest adjusters without taking the back of the seat off. For 2 days. Then it dawned on my to take the back off. It only took about 30 seconds after that. So now that I've got that down, I need to figure out:

A) Why the vertical adjustment doesn't seem to be working even with the new shocks
B) Why the seat bottom rail thingy is loose (which makes the whole seat rock while driving, VERY annoying
C) Get the broken bolster frame connector welded somewhere.

[ldsbeaker]

Thanks for the link!

[rammstein]

Well so OK- I got all 4 shocks replaced. The backrest seems like it is going to work fine. However, the vertical adjustment doesn't really do anything. When I push down on the back lever, isn't the back of the seat bottom supposed to pop up? And when I push down on the front lever, what is supposed to happen? Nothing is happening with these. It appears like the vertical adjuster is at least connected to both sides- the mechanisms on both sides move when I push down, but no action. Any thoughts?

[kenika65]

Damn good post What are the shock part# and where are you all buying them from?

[Rhys]

Thank you for the useful info on the sport seats!, I really needed it.