Power Seat Tilt Switch Rebuild/Repair (1 Viewer)

[clx16]

I am sure others have the issue of the Tilt switch becoming broken as people slide out of the driver side seat. Mine came pre-broken for me when I purchased last year. I decided I would take parts from a passenger donor seat to fix the switch cluster on the drivers side. Here is how I did it, but I realize others may not have a donor passenger seat or to do this. So here is how it started out:

I was in the middle of replacing the leather during this process, so the seat was removed from the vehicle.
I am not going to cover taking the seat out or apart, as others have covered that very well and better than I could.

Here is the controls assembly removed, and as you can see someone previously tried to "Build up" the cushion using Spray insulation which didn't workout well at all. Notice the upper plastic rod is missing where it broke off. I then removed the yellow/white plastic frame and clean off the Spray Foam.

Here is a picture of the removal and the very thin rubber cover pulled away. At this point I realized the lumbar adjustment switch was going to have to be removed in order to take the black plastic insert out (which is snapped in all along the sides). So flip the assembly over and pop out the transparent back cover and you will see the wiring as depicted below:

Notice there are two phillips screws "circled" in red, these will need to be removed in order to remove the lumbar switch.

So here is my Donor switch taken from an extra passenger side seat, nothing really special and I am not going to describe the disassembly process, as it is the same concept as the driver's side assembly. I am using the top post. The top posts on both seats are not centered rockers, but actually sit above center and that offset is why I had to use the top rocker post and couldn't just use one of the lower rocker posts.

 

[clx16]

Now here is the assembly opened and showing the front view, notice the lubar rocker is removed and the thin black rubber cover is removed. Here is the donor rocker post installed and "circled" in red.

Now is a good time to clean the contacts under the seesaw rockers with a pencil eraser and remove all the black dust for a better connection later. You can see in this picture the post at the top is offset up and not in the centered vertically like the lower three. Now just reverse the process for assembly.

^^ this is the final result, tested the switch and all is working properly. Now don't be too harsh on my leather installation skills but the picture below is the finished product. (I also used the oak plastic switch that snaps on top from the donor seat). I understand Oak is no longer available from Mr. T these days.

This is the final result. I hope this information is helpful to someone with the same affliction!

 

[Haspin FJ]

I've done similar. All my plastic parts were good so I used donor contact rockers from a Camry if I remember correctly. Cleaned them up real good. I've did it once just cleaning them and then again did it with the donor parts after the fist attempt did not last and I'm again having trouble with the front rear sliding adjustment after not a real long time. Now wondering if you could silver plate the contacts or something similar to get a long service life back as it seems like something has worn off from the original factory condition that makes them lose contact again more quickly.

 

[clx16]

For others later one, do you remember what year Camry you pulled the rockers from?

I know others have done some mods to the power window switch to reduce the arching. I wonder if that would be a more long term fix. I can't find the thread at the moment, but it involved some soldering.

actually here it is
Window Switch (slow/non-reliable windows) Repair

 

[Haspin FJ]

For others later one, do you remember what year Camry you pulled the rockers from?

I know others have done some mods to the power window switch to reduce the arching. I wonder if that would be a more long term fix. I can't find the thread at the moment, but it involved some soldering.

actually here it is
Window Switch (slow/non-reliable windows) Repair

Thanks for the link. I don't remember which Camry year. It was from a vehicle from around the same time frame as the 80s run. I actually found the cheapest one on ebay I could find under "Toyota seat switch" that had a similar look as far as the construction goes where you could tell it would come apart in a similar fashion as the 80 series switch.

 

[Godwin]

Thread bump.

Does the outer cover on the switch just pop off? All functions of the driver side switch work except the fore-aft function and I want to pull it and try cleaning it.

 

[clx16]

There are some molded in clips which the first one i pulled off, i broke one of them with a lot of force. i think the second time i pulled one off, i fished a flathead under the leather and the sheetmetal back there to push it off. you will have a much easier task by removing the seat. you can see where the two tabs go through to the metal plate on the back. you MIGHT be able to release them with your fingers.