'87 Carrera driver's side power seat is stuck aft. Is there a manual way to move it?

cantdrv55 · 10-18-2010, 03:22 PM

Pain in the butt power seats.

The driver's seat is stuck aft and won't move forward. All other electric seat functions are working fine. Could be the switch or the motor, I'm guessing, as the cables look fine. Is there a way to switch the power switch connections so that I can connect the aft wire to the fore function? Is there a manual override? I can't seem to find the motor in Pelican's parts catalog. Does anyone know where I can buy it? TIA.

steely · 03:52 PM

There's a good chance it's just dirty switch contacts and not the motor. There are a couple of threads around here on this. I had similar issues with the driver side and did a little teardown and cleaning. Some others just spray contact cleaner on the switch.

Only risk is - assuming I recall correctly - that the switch power may be hot all of the time requiring some caution.

I don't believe you can manually move the seat w/o removing it.

on edit: Found it:
"how-to" fix power seat switches......

cantdrv55 · 10-18-2010, 04:06 PM

Thanks Dan. Did you have to remove the seat, flip it upside down just to remove the switch?

Drisump · Drisump's Garage

Have you recently removed the seat? Sometimes the rails don't naturally go back on parallel to each other and the seat binds up. Cheers

john walker's workshop · 10-18-2010, 05:41 PM

get a big rubber or plastic hammer and boink the rear of the slider while you work the switch. they tend to get stuck all the way back. fixed tons of them.

kanadary · 10-18-2010, 06:05 PM

for me i took the cover off, then took some radio shack volume control cleaner, sprayed it in the holes and it worked fine. i did remove the seat and take the whole unit out to check it out but didn't see anything amiss.

Carrera3.2LG50 · Carrera3.2LG50's Garage

At the lower front of the power seat there is a spot for an allen key. You can use that to slowly turn the gears and move the seat fore or aft.

If you still have the tools in your toolkit, there is a hand crank tool with a 5mm or so allen key at the end of it. This should work to move your seat manually.

Before I had my passenger seat switch replaced I used this tool to move the seat rearwards since the switch would only work forwards.

Hope this helps. Paul

cantdrv55 · 10-18-2010, 06:42 PM

Thanks guys. I'll try the allen and if that doesn't work, I'll bring out the mallet

MH911 · MH911's Garage

Quote:

Originally Posted by john walker's workshop

get a big rubber or plastic hammer and boink the rear of the slider while you work the switch. they tend to get stuck all the way back. fixed tons of them.

+1 on this. I had the same problem with my passenger seat. Found an old thread on this problem. Gave mine a smack with a rubber mallet and it started to move.

steely · 10-19-2010, 03:13 PM

Sorry for the late reply to your question - No, I did not have to remove the seat to clean my contacts.

Like your sig btw

jmd88 · 12-27-2021, 09:37 AM

Just wanted to add this here as I just had to overcome the worst version of Power Seat Problems (tm)

Tools:
2 drills (drill bits kit)
Philips head
6mm alan
18MM wrench - only used for additional leverage
Small torch (to heat alan heads to soften factory lock tight)

For a failed 88' 8-way power seat (drivers) that has damaged manual adjuster:
1. Remove the front plastic panel covering the front of the seat base
2. Remove "paperclip" that wraps around the motor top and L/R sides of the motor around the black tubes that hold the driveshafts
3. Remove the clip behind the left side driveshaft tube (black tube, clip pushes back similar to a circlip) this will allow pulling driveshaft out of the motor gearbox, pulling to the right until it's free
4. Pull left driveshaft out of the motor gearbox
5. Pull both driveshaft tubes forward and away from the seat - the drive shafts themselves are free within the tubes so don't pull them out, just move the tubes so you can get both drills in the foot well.
6. Mount 1/4 inch of the drive shaft square end into the tip of the drill (both sides - one in each drill)
7. Set one drill to forward and the other to reverse. Now VERY SLOWLY, while pushing towards the seat to engage the gearing at the end of the shafts... rotate each side at the time/speed and observe the direction of seat travel. I started by going back first.
8. With the seat all the way back, see the 2 alan heads exposed in the seat track... both of mine had been TOTALLY stripped and required being drilled out...
9. Once the front alans are out, reverse the directions of both drills and move the seat all the way forward to expose the 4 alan heads in the back.
10. (AT YOUR OWN RISK) > Light your torch bottle and adjust to a small pencil tip flame. VERY CAREFULLY put the flame on the head of each of the bolts back and forth on one side for about 20-30 seconds to heat the bolt head up.
11. Insert your 6mm and then put the round side of your 18mm on the alan for additional leverage and very slowly apply pressure to break the bolt loose.
12. Repeat 11. for the other side - the seat should now be free.
13. Tilt the seat back and find a gold plate held with 2 Philips heads - pull those and unplug the switch harness.
14. Unplug seatbelt receiver harness
15. Pull the super heavy seat out - open a beer and celebrate your accomplishment.

Hope that helps someone else!