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

[nakman]

A few of you have been bugging me about these, and tonight I have some good news for you. The long awaited seat gear appears to have been successfully reproduced..


start by removing your seat

take off the front plastic panel

then remove the 4 5mm allen bolts.

 

[nakman]

Here's what the FSM has to say.. (check back when you reassemble, to verify torque of those 2 shaft nuts)

 

[nakman]

To take off the shaft bolts, hold the shaft with a vice grip. Remove the little plastic the rear supports, then unscrew the gear housing. When you remove the shafts from the slides of the seat, do your best not to allow the thing to twist at all, and thus change position. It's important that both sides are at the same position, in relation to each other, or it's going to try to push your seat crooked and probably not work too well.

 

[nakman]

Notice how there's a thick rubber washer on the "inside" of the shaft, and a thin one on the "outside," against the little panel you just took off. I'm not sure if this matters, but suspect you could swap them down the road if you wanted to wear a different part of the gear.

To remove it, jack it off using a deep socket, or similar tube-like object. the 18mm I grabbed seemed to do the job well.

 

[nakman]

Notice how there are three little indents (in the picture in the post above) in the side of the stock gear, where the thing has been staked in place. When removing, I pressed it so that I didn't make those stakes pass over the knurls of the shaft. Actually I don't know if that matters, but it felt worth mentioning at the time. To get it to budge (didn't want to shatter a perfectly good gear) I heated up the shaft with propane, actually aimed the flame at the vice mostly then let that heat the shaft. At about the time the gear started to look like it was about to melt, I was able to press it off with moderate force.

I cut a small chamfer in the new gear with a utility knife, to help it get started. I'll put this chamfer into the CAD file for future parts, so don't worry about that step.

 

[nakman]

To press it on you can use a smaller socket if you want, and actually that will help create a stop when it smacks against the raised knurled portion of the shaft. Once on, I deburred the little chips the knurls made with a utility knife. You can see by the material removed how well engaged the knurls of the shaft must be with the new gear.

Then it's just bolt it all back up, I put the rubber washers in the same orientation as how they came out, and put a mess of grease around the new gear teeth.

 

[nakman]

Picture of all the the parts you removed, and most of the tools. Really not that much to it, I did all the bolts finger tight, then went around and put a wrench on them.. remember not to over torque those shaft nuts.

Also if you haven't done the white cap, you may as well install that now since the seat is right in front of you. This is the passenger seat, if you hadn't guessed that already, a perfectly working passenger seat I might ad. Tonight I swapped out both the white cap, and the gear, with ones that I have made.

 

[nakman]

Once back in the truck, set it in place and plug in the power first, then test it a couple times just to make sure it works. Mine took a couple times going front & back before it kicked into its groove, not sure what was up so I removed it and loosened the white cap a little (something that made the DS work a little better). Put it back in and it was better, so I bolted it up.

Remember when you're installing any seat, get all 4 started before you tighten anything, otherwise it takes twice as long as it needs to. total time start to finish was about 1 hour. To test it, I sat in the seat and lifted my feat, then rode the seat forwards all the way and back all the way about 10x. After the first couple it seemed to run a little smoother, maybe they needed a little break-in period or something. That's probably the most that seat has had to move in 5 years though, usually it's just a little tweak here and there, often with months of no adjustment. So really not sure how long these will last, but if they're not abused I suspect they should last a long time.

I've got a couple test subjects who will be receiving their gears in the next couple days. I look forward to them posting up their results, and at that time will decide if these are for sale as-is, or if further development is required. But for now, I'm pretty satisfied and actually pretty psyched this all works.

ok, on with the comments..

 

[sdnative]

Great job! Waiting patiently for a set.

 

[fjfar80]

Question...and if I am way off base...just let me know. Looking at the pictures it looks like this would be a part that you could combine...in other words make it one part or a shaft with the gear...all of one piece of metal. Is there any reason that this would not work...is it necessary for the gear to be plastic? Just my non-engineer thoughts on it.

 

[nakman]

Question...and if I am way off base...just let me know. Looking at the pictures it looks like this would be a part that you could combine...in other words make it one part or a shaft with the gear...all of one piece of metal. Is there any reason that this would not work...is it necessary for the gear to be plastic? Just my non-engineer thoughts on it.

You asking why did Toyota do it this way? IMO biggest reason is cost, that would be a lot of material to remove. You'd have to start with about a 1.125" stainless bar then hob the gear teeth then drill & broach the ID then turn down the ends... Costs a lot more than machining just the smaller piece of metal, then slamming a plastic gear onto it.

Also you could argue for wanting to create the weak point in the system.. so by stripping these gears everyone's motors have been spared, which likely cost a lot more than a little plastic gear. (break a Warn hub & save a ring & pinion any day).


Or if you're asking why I made these out of plastic well that's easy, my life is plastics.

 

[fjfar80]

Nakman -

Thanks for the info. I was actually looking at it from an original design point. I see what you mean, but it looks like that if you had the time and cash a solid piece might be a good substitute.

Cheers.

 

[cruiserdan]

any day).


Or if you're asking why I made these out of plastic well that's easy, my life is plastics.

Sure, you'll make these goofy little bastards but you won't make my end caps...

 

[corsair23]

Dude,

You ARE the master of plastic fabrication!! So how long till you can fabricate FZJ80 body parts out of plastic - Just think of how much faster we could make it to Moab with plastic hoods, fenders, doors, etc

 

[yarborg]

Here is my stripped gear...

I finally got around to taking my gear box apart; thanks for the photo walkthrough they are so important for us newbs. I certainly need a new one, two actually. Here is a photo of mine. I am going to replace them both if you will make them. I hope I can get the plastic piece on the metal gear.

At first I didn't think it looked stripped. I was expecting the whole thing to be ground to bits. But just the center is worn down and inside the remaining grooves there is bits of plastic meal along with the yellow grease. What kind of grease should I use when putting this back together?

Thanks!

 

[nakman]

I finally got around to taking my gear box apart; thanks for the photo walkthrough they are so important for us newbs. I certainly need a new one, two actually. Here is a photo of mine. I am going to replace them both if you will make them. I hope I can get the plastic piece on the metal gear.

At first I didn't think it looked stripped. I was expecting the whole thing to be ground to bits. But just the center is worn down and inside the remaining grooves there is bits of plastic meal along with the yellow grease. What kind of grease should I use when putting this back together?

Thanks!

Cool glad the pictures helped, and hopefully I'll have some positive feedback this week from my unbiased "test subject" on the gear's success, then yes I will have these available for sale. could be as soon as this week.

what kind of grease? I dunno, whatever you have left over from your axle service is probably fine. I used some wheel bearing stuff... there's probably one out there better for plastics, but I don't know what.


edit: and that gear should come off fine if you have some deep sockets and a vice, as shown above. Blow off the heat if you want, who cares if it cracks that gear is already jacked. I'd only use the heat if you wanted to save the gear for some reason, or if the gear just won't budge.

 

[Clutchee]

Thanks Tim for saving us all TONS of money replacing large, costly parts!

PS...hurry up & start selling these;p

 

[concretejungle]

awesome Nak!! my end plug screw thingys are holding up really well.

 

[LCflyer]

I'll need a couple of the gear pieces when they are available. Mine look just like the pictures above. Nakman...are they ready to sell yet?

 

[tbo_cruiser]

ditto ditto

I'll need a couple of the gear pieces when they are available. Mine look just like the pictures above. Nakman...are they ready to sell yet?

I would take 2 pairs. Let us know when they are ready.