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, Wed, 29 Dec 2004 16:21:07
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Hello there!
When i bought my 1990 9000 turbo, i had the same problem on my driver's side seat.
it was really annoying because when you lean back in the seat, you'd either be looking out your window, or accross at your passanger seat!
there was never a happy medium!
I fixed it in about an hour, maybe 2, and i only used a few zip ties, which cost me about 50 cents, not even...
HERE IS THE SOLUTION:
the seat back is controlled by a motor directly under your seat, in the direct center of the seat.
If you look under the seat from the front (which requires lying on the ground outside of the car, and peeking in) you will be looking straight onto the front of the motor.
it is positioned perpendicular to you when you look at it from that view however, as opposed to parallel. It is a cylander about an inch and a half in diameter and 3-4 inches long. so what you see is a black circle...
It's easiest to see when you raise the front of the seat up with the other motor control, hopefully that still works for you! ;)
Once you can see the motor, you'll notice that there are two black tentacle looking things coming out of it. they are about 1/2 inch in diameter, just about.
these are plastic cases that do not spin, which are housings for the metal spinning "drive shafts" for your seat back. these plastic cases are the only thing that hold the metal shafts in place. if you want to see what the metal shaft themselves look like, go in your trunk and take a look in your saab tool kit. if you ever looked at the metal whip looking thing, with a handle on it, this is exactly what the shaft is made from. about 1/4 inch in diameter and ribbed, for her pleasure. ;)
one end of the metal is stuck into the motor, and the other end goes up into the seat back to the gears.
either end is ***ONLY*** held in place by pressure, perhaps there was some sort of adhesive at one point, but my metal shafts would just pull out easily, and pop in easily, no screws or tools needed bascially.
so what happened to our seats is... the black plastic case around the shaft broke... and caused the metal to pull out of one end of the system, either the motor or the seat back, only on one side though, of course.
When i reached under the seat, i felt on the plastic casing from the motor, all the way back as far as i could reach. one side had no breaks, but the other side had a missing section... it was pretty easy to find, not rocket science. once i found the break, i followed the metal inner shaft back to where it SHOULD have been connected.
I'll be honest with you, i could not SEE what i was doing under the seat at this point, as i was trying to find where the shaft connected into the seat back itself... even with it lifted up in the front, even with a light. I didn't want to remove the seat from the car, i was not that motivated, but it can be done withouth removing the seat.
There IS an obvious place for the metal shaft to connect into though, it's just a hole in the upperback side of whatever corner your plastic case broke on.
however, YOU could be lucky, and have had your metal shaft pull out on the MOTOR side of the system, which would be easy for you to see and work on. because it's right up front.
I however was not so lucky, but in any case, it's still easy to fix, in my opinion.
ANYWAYS...
once you get both metal shafts connected in the system on both ends, you will be able to move the seat back at the same time... i tested this by having someone operate the seat controls while i manually held the metal shaft in place. I seem to recall the metal spinning around in my hand, it wasn't painful or anything because it's not spinning that fast, but it was all greased up from being in the plastic case. By the way, i removed the broken plastic pieces completely out of the car, leaving half of the plastic case left. so plastic came out of my motor, and a few inches from the motor the plastic ended and the metal shaft was on it's own, all the way back into the seat gears.
once i knew the shafts were in the right place... it was time to adjust the seat, so the back was level on both sides. it took a little trial and error, but i got them level enough so i was comfy. What i mean is, i'd disconnect the metal shaft on one side, then adjust the other side by using the seat controls, and match the two sides up together. then i would re-connect the metal shaft and then the seat motors would move together.
I got up a few times and sat in the seat to make sure it felt good too.
once i had them adjusted to a good place, i went back under the seat and got my zip ties...
I'm confident that you'll see what you have to do with the zip ties when you get under the seat... i'll try and explain tho.
There is a steel cage frame under the seat. lots of black metal bars going every which way and that. The drive shafts for the seat back travel in close proximity to some of these bars. What i did was put several zip ties around the metal shaft and around several of these metal bars, which held the metal shaft in place, keeping it locked into the seat back.
i'm pretty sure that whichever end your metal shaft pulled out of, you will be able to zip tie it back into place.
DO NOT SPEND $220 for ANYONE TO FIX THIS!!! do it yourself man, and spend $220 on some performance parts, or on a tune up! ;)
if you run into a problem, e-mail me, i can try and talk you through it.
-gavin
posted by 69.168.104...
my 1990 9000 turbo site, (not updated recently)
, Wed, 29 Dec 2004 16:21:07
, Thu, 30 Dec 2004 21:20:46
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