front seat gear swap (Broken Seat/Missing Cap Issue, pt. 2)

[98 SNAKE EATER]

nakman, you are THE MAN!!


Installed a new gear and on my stuck passenger seat today and following your detailed photos it only took 25 minutes from start to finish


Tailgate was a perfect workbench

Gear and cap were definitely stripped

My table vise broke a couple weeks ago, so I used the press instead

The only niggle was that mine didn't have the thick rubber washer on the inside of the housing

It just had what appeared to be two metal washers

Dabbed some grease, stuck the new gear in place, wrapped everything up and she's as smooth as ever

 

[nakman]

Dude is that your garage? wow.

 

[wantLCgotLX]

I am just getting into this, but i noticed an issue under my seat, and i am not sure how big of a deal it is.

The seat is from a 97 lx450. I am thinking the previous owner monkeyed with it a bit when the seat died, because when I went to removed it only 3 of the 4 feet were bolted to the floor.

But what I noticed was that when turned over, near the rear of the seat that I was missing some sort of plastic holder for the rail that the seat travels on. There looks to be a metal bracket and a place that something should be there to hold that floating rail. The drivers seat has it. Maybe rail is the wrong word. It is the long threaded part that is on both sides of the seat that the motor travels.

Missing this plastic holder or receiver, is that a problem? Will that put too much flex on the system and let it break again?
If I need that part, where would I find it.

Thanks!

 

[KimoSabe]

Missing this plastic holder or receiver, is that a problem? Will that put too much flex on the system and let it break again?
If I need that part, where would I find it.

Thanks!

take a pic of the part and post on classified under wanted parts, bound to find members with seats for spares, I've got a couple.

 

[TexasLexus]

There's an old trick in the bicycling world to use hair spray to make rubber grips go on to handle bars easier. I'm wondering if this would help when trying to seat the new gear into place on the shaft?

 

[98 SNAKE EATER]

Driver's side munched a gear over the weekend

Good thing I had the extra gear and cap

 

[concretejungle]

nice pics!! Thanks for those!

 

[ckrustware0045]

Fixed my passenger seat

Fixed my passenger seat in 2 hours from start to end. I bent my "cyinder" which goes through the hole of the gear, and massaged it to make it work which took some time. Here are pics of the 2 gears in the passenger seat. The gear from the inside with a cap was trashed, the other was in good shape and re-used. I will save it for the driver's seat.

Great thread and product!

 

[Buckru]

Recently completed my gear swap on the drivers seat. Not sure if this has been stated in this thread (I was using details on the Gamiviti site) but a couple of tips. Raising the front of the seat bottom allows you to acces the cover screws on the plastic cover panel. The second is fully moving the seat back forward to help make the removal of the seat (pulling the seat out) much easier. Do both of these before unpluggin the power. I had to put the seat back in, reconnect power, raise the seat bottom, pull the seat back out just to get at those screws

Great product and great service Tim. I appreciate it and should have said thanks sooner. Go Gamiviti.

Buck

 

[Big Jimbo]

This is the best web site ever

Ih8mud saved the day again!! I haven't had any problems with the old 450 since I replaced the head gasket and main seals a few years ago (it still runs like new and doesn't leak a drop), but last week the passenger seat quit moving. I thought it needed a new motor but thought I would check this great site. I read about the possible missing white cap and showed the picture to my wife. She said she saw it last week and threw it in the garbage because it didn't look like anything important. She went and looked in the garbage and found it! I screwed it back in and now the seat works again! Another miracle fix, and this one was free!!!

 

[destinsb]

anybody still making/selling these gears?
Thanks

 

[yodaTEQ]

Ih8mud saved the day again!! I haven't had any problems with the old 450 since I replaced the head gasket and main seals a few years ago (it still runs like new and doesn't leak a drop), but last week the passenger seat quit moving. I thought it needed a new motor but thought I would check this great site. I read about the possible missing white cap and showed the picture to my wife. She said she saw it last week and threw it in the garbage because it didn't look like anything important. She went and looked in the garbage and found it! I screwed it back in and now the seat works again! Another miracle fix, and this one was free!!!

Great story Big Jimbo!!
I especially like the part that your lady remembered the part AND dug through the trash. You should take that great woman to a nice dinner in addition to thanking MUD.

I second the praise you give this site, I also fixed my seat because of this thread

Cheers,
Frank

 

[nakman]

anybody still making/selling these gears?
Thanks

yup.

 

[SiRaDuDe]

NakMan

I got the caps from you a while back, have not installed them yet...

I was thinking, maybe I should get a set of gears for each seat also... Just in case.

How many do I need for both front seats. (2 Pairs I guess)

Send me the payment info and costs to ship via USPS to Puerto Rico (will ba the same as any other state).

Should I just send $40 to the same paypal address I used to buy the caps?


THANKS!

 

[nakman]

Yup, you can just do it all through the web site.. 2 pair would probably be overkill as spares if your seats are working though, probably 2 is plenty. and no problem mailing to state #51! thanks, man.

 

[SiRaDuDe]

2 pair would probably be overkill as spares if your seats are working though, probably 2 is plenty. and no problem mailing to state #51! thanks, man.

That's just the problem, neither of them are working, I got the caps a while back and have not installed them. Last time I tinkered they seemed to work if I used my finger as a cap, but now that trick does not work.

In your past experience just One gear should be enough to fix 1 bad seat that has not seen much tinkering?

 

[98 SNAKE EATER]

In you past experience just One gear should be enough to fix 1 bad seat that has not seen much tinkering?

That's how it was with mine

The kit came with 2 caps and 2 gears

I used one cap and gear to fix my passenger side seat last December, then used the leftover gear and cap to fix the driver side in July

Hardest part was trying to find where I had left it

 

[bdac]

With regard to moving the seat back. If your gear has already been stripped then the jack screws are unlikely to be anywhere close to lined up with one another. It looked to me like the best way to deal with that was to run the seat all the way back. Since the side with bad gear probably won't move, you might have to do this after unbolting the seat from the floor. With the jack screw on the side with the motor run all the back, it will stop when the 'stop' (washer welded to the screw) hits the bracket that holds the jack screw to the seat frame. Before you reinstall the jack screw on the side with the gear housing, you simply turn the jack screw until its stop is up against the bracket. Assuming these were aligned properly during manufacturing, this should result in the jack screws being properly aligned. Anyway, it seems to work on mine.

This worked for me! I just picked up a “new to me” 95’ with both front seats seized. The original owner gave me a set of gears, and I bought an additional set last week. Sadly, I stripped two of the new gears. First bolt was not properly aligned before bolting it to the frame and the second gear stripped after the seat reached the stop position causing the gear to jump and strip again. The key was to unwind the gear worm until it strikes the stop bracket as quoted above and affix the white plug.
To affix the white plug, most have used gorilla glue, but I wanted a solution which would still allow removal. I decided to insert a screw perpendicular to the white plug. So far, so good. Thanks Nakman!

 

[concretejungle]

I used superglue as a "loctite" application. Has worked great for over 2 years now. It probably will never come out, but i'll cross that bridge when i get to it, if i ever get to it.

 

[jonasx]

Worked great

I had removed the left track clamp on both seat to un-sieze them. It worked but the gear and drive rattled something awful. Finally had enough of the noise and just ordered, worked great and the tips for pulling the old off saved me a ton of headache. Thanks Much!