Some Seat Maintenance

Having done the front and back ends I thought it was time to do some work on the interior, mainly the seats.   There were various things I fancied doing.

1.  Clean out under the seats. 
2.  Clean the seats.
3.  Overhaul the seat mechanism.
4.  Check seat mountings.

Obviously the first thing I needed to do was to remove the seats.  The driver seat turned out to be easier than I expected, just held in by 4 bolts bolted through the floor.    It was a bit of a tight fit and I had to remove the tunnel top, but I eventually got it out.   The passenger seat was more difficult as one of the 'captive' bolts 'wasn't'.   But with a bit of fiddling I managed to get the nut off the bolt.

Once the seats were out this was what the floor looked like.   So a good brush out and vacuum was called for.

And this was what I found during the cleaning.

2 x Bolts, 3 x Nuts, 3 x Washers, 2 x Nut Covers, 2 x Screws, 2 x Electrical Terminators, a Plug, a side arm off some spectacles, a penny and a packet of mints.  A veritable gold mine :-)


 
Once I had the seats out I was pleased to find there were actually 4 sets of adjusters on the drivers seat (forward/backward, height, rake & lumbar support) instead of just the two I had used (forward/backward & rake).  The other 2 had been hidden by the side panel of the car.  So I preset them before putting the seats back in.  The passenger seat had 3 adjusters, as the height was fixed.

Next thing was to fix the 'non-captive' bolt.  I haven't taught myself welding yet so I resorted to a new bolt with a narrow nut tightened right up to lock the bolt in position.

Then a good wash and scrub of the seat fabric.





Both seats were simply mounted through the floor but with large iron washers and metal strips to spread the load and prevent them pulling through the stainless steel floor.   

Although they were perfectly safe I took the opportunity to add some extra spreaders (from B&Q) to make then even stronger.   And just to be ultra-sure I replaced all the nuts with new Nyloc ones.