DO IT YOURSELF.
I tore apart my driver-side seat this morning to replace the rubber bushings, and thought I'd share a few notes that go above the instructions on WayCoolInc.
First of all, this really is not a bad project. I did one seat in probably an hour, including seat removal/install, and some general goofing around. The only part of it that is at all time consuming is sanding the bushings. I'm not going to go over the process, as the article on WayCoolInc is pretty comprehensive, but I am going to list some specifics that the article doesn't have.
Required Tools:
-16mm combination wrench (Seatbelt bolt)
-16mm shallow 3/8" drive socket (Rear seat bolts)
-13mm socket (Front seat nuts)
-Blankets (Cover your door sill and console to prevent damage when removing the seat)
-T50 Torx (A socket is preferrable, since this is a big bolt and it is torqued in with Loctite. I used a torx driver, but only because Wiha makes tools beefier than most. This is for the large bolt that holds the threaded rod assembly in.)
-T25 Torx (No Loctite and low-torque, so a torx driver is fine. This is for the two bolts that hold the "shish kebab" in place on the slider.)
-Sandpaper (I used 320 grit, but you can use heavier if you like.)
-Grease (I imagine that any will do. I used lithium grease.)
-12v power supply (Not necessry, but highly recommended.)
Technical notes on the bushings:
I got mine from Doug Whalen, and they are made of white Delrin. Each of them was 3.28mm thick according to my caliper. Combined, the two bushings need to take up roughly 5.8mm of space, so you will need to sand each bushing down to around 2.9mm. I am a fanatic about lubing moving parts when I have them apart, so I slathered every wearing surface pertaining to seat movement with the lithium grease. When I finished, the seat movement was much quieter.
Here is a photo of the old rubber bushings. They had gotten pretty mashed up and were actually threading themselves along the rod (All this over 32k miles). Next to the bushings is pile of fine, Columbian, Delrin. Funny how much dust there is for such a small thickness adjustment.
Power Supply Notes:
I highly recommend having the 12v power supply on hand when doing this project. It makes it possible for you to test everything without mounting it back in the car. You can find bench power supplies at electronics suppliers, or you can get a fairly nice one for free by taking apart an old computer. My power supply is out of an old Pentium desktop and is of the AT variety (for those of you in the IT field). ATX power supplies will also work as a bench power supply with a little modding. These power supplies can give you +12v, +5v, +3.3v lines and even weak -12v and -5v lines. If anyone wants to know how to mod an old power supply to this end, PM me and I will give you the procedure, otherwise I'll let you figure it out yourself.
My power supply
The seat power plug is the large white connector under the seat. It only has two wires, so you can't miss it. Just plug the power supply into that connector and you can use your power seat motors outside of the car.
All that said, it is a very easy project and gets rid of that horrible seat shifting you get when you brake hard.
Z-Day Master at Arms
Actually, your rubber bushings are in better shape than most that I've seen.Originally Posted by Vinci
All of mine (2.8 and M) were literally turned to mush when I swapped them out (the M at 6800 miles!!).
Good job!
DO IT YOURSELF.
I was pretty surprised about that too. As much as it felt like my seat was moving, I would have expected the bushing to be completely gone. I can only imagine how much yours moved before the replacement.
Member
Thanks for the post Vinci
the driver's seat in my car has a little movement but only on the left side whenever I brake or accelerate, when I first got the car I found it annoying.
Looks like I'll be doing the bushing fix in the near future.
Thanks
Tom
Z-Day Master at Arms
It was pretty crazy.. I'd estimate ~3 inches of front to back movement on EVERY stop and start.
I opened them up and managed to get.. what I can best describe as melted rubber.. though it wasn't melted, it was more like it was chemically dissolved.
Delrin FTW !
DO IT YOURSELF.
I just did my passenger side this morning. The OE bushings were mint, so I'm guessing the previous owners didn't have many passengers. If anyone wants these bushings, they can have them for the cost of shipping.
Z-Day Master at Arms
Wow.. So that's what they look like! That's actually really shocking.I just did my passenger side this morning. The OE bushings were mint, so I'm guessing the previous owners didn't have many passengers
I dunno how you did that. The previous owners MUST have replaced them once. Was there any lubricant at all on them? I think the stock lubricant (petroleum based) actually chemically destroys the rubber bushings over a short period of time.
My M had only 6,800 miles on it when I had to replace mine, and they were completely disintegrated.
DO IT YOURSELF.
Nothing under the seat would lead me to believe that anything had been taken apart before, so I can't say if they have been replaced before. Everything was coated with the green lube that they came with from the factory, and it was in much better shape than on the driver side. The driver side lube was pretty dark and you could just barely tell that it had been green at some point. I think that passenger seat was just rarely ever used.
Member
I did my drivers side a couple months ago and my passenger side just two days ago. I hate to tell you that the power supply is not needed and this project is much simpler if you follow my steps....here is my post from another thread.
I just did my drivers side seat today. Made the bushings last night from a block of Acetal using a band saw and drill press. It took a while, but hey it was free.
Today I did the repair. First, I moved the seat all the way back and removed the front nuts, then (against the directions) moved the seat all the way FORWARD and removed the back bolts. They are so much easier to get at that way. Luckily I had no frayed or cut wires like the instructions indicate you may have. So, now I disconnected the plugs and pulled the seat out and heft it downstairs to my shop. I came back and vacuumed the area out and collected $1.46 in the process~
Now I got to removing the pontoons. The little torx screws were easy enough, but then I noticed I didn't have a torx big enough for the one that hold the cabob (ball screw) in. So, I ran to the hardaware store and bought one of those and back to work. I loosened up the large torx bolt and then found out that it won't pass through the hole in the pontoon (rail)!! Come on....what engineer desinged that? Now I realized why the instructions said you may need a 12V power source.
BLAH!! Out came the Dremel tool and I ground out the hole big enough for the torx bolt to pass through. Bolts come out....cabobs comes out. Now I see why my seat was moving....those stock rubber bushings are worthless.
I also noted that on one side someone at the factory must have gotten a little happy with the green grease....or so it shall now be known as Guacamole on the cabob
The ball screw come off easy enough...the "L" on the one side does not mean left side of the seat however, it means lefthand hand thread (it's acutally on the righand side if the seat)....they are different. So, I sand down and fit in my homemade Acetal bushings and have it all back together in about a 1/2 hour. I heft the seat back out to the garage and bolt it back in and NO MORE SLIDING!!! YEAH!!
One other note I'd like to point out. If you move the seat all the forward like I did before you disconnect the wiring then you have to enlarge the holes in the pontoons slightly to remove the torx bolt IF you don't have a 12V power source to move them once the seat is removed. HOWEVER, doing it this way, you do not have to mark the ball screws with tape because they are all the way back to the stop (plastic tube/spacer with slit about 1.5 inch long). So when you reassmble, just screw the cabobs down until the but up tight against that plastic tube/spacer.
Anyway, all done....that went rather smooth
- Chris
Member
Thought I'd add to this thread since I referred to it and the waycoolinc page when I installed the whalen bushings this thanksgiving.
Some quick extra notes:
1.) I ended up not needing to use the 12v power supply, if you're careful about where the bushing block is on the kebab you should be fine. How can you be careful you ask...? Read #2
2.) I used a square and just measured the distance from the pointed end of the kebab to the edge of the bushing block, before spinning the block off. Also, when spinning the block off, I counted each revolution. The rod can spin, so the number of revolutions may end up being off by 1/2 turn or so, but you'll have to spin the rod when putting it back into the seat so that the worm motor shaft lines up. Pay attention to the details like this BEFORE touching anything and you should be fine. The parts are so greasy I don't see how tape would have marked the location.
3.) There's 4-5 plugs at the rear of the seat that need to be removed for the airbag/etc. I found using a very small screw driver let me lift up the plug's clip enough that it cleared the plastic snap in dot/square on the matching plug. Once you figure one out they're all the same.
4.) For some reason, my driver's side seat's wiring had one wire buried inside the seat, so I couldn't unclip it and take the seat out. I therefore had to rotate the seat inside the car, and tilted the seat across the width of the car, putting the headrest into the passenger seat's lap. Because of this, I recommend doing the passenger seat first.
5.) I'd do one kebab at a time, from start to finish, and put it back into the seat before I took out the 2nd one. It makes mixups that much less likely, and things less confusing.
6.) I followed the advice of unbolting the rear bolts first, and the front seat bolts last. That way you're taking the seat out with it moved almost all the way back.
Anyway, it's a fair amount of work! But not rocket science, just tiring. Once you finish one seat the other is a piece of cake.
Last edited by jac389psu; 11-30-2006 at 11:22 PM. Reason: forgot a step
Allergic to veggies
additional notes:
*Be very, very, carefull when removing seats out of the car, you can stab your door panel with the pointy end of the seat mount.
*Take the time to clean & condition filthy carpet
*Take the time to clean & condition leather chair.
The search box is awesome..try it!
Member
Finally did the install myself yesterday (after making these bushings for over four years!).
The only thing that I would add is the fact that you CAN use a 5/8" wrench on the seatbelt anchor bolt, and a 5/8" socket on the rear bolts.
In fact a 5/8" actually fits a tad more snug on the bolt heads.
The only tool I didn't have on hand when I got ready to do my own bushings was was a 16mm socket.
Rather than run to the hardware store, I did some quick math, then tried a 5/8" ratchet wrench on the anchor bolt; worked great, as did a 5/8" socket on the rear bolts.
Just an FYI.
DO IT YOURSELF.
How ironic.
Finally did the install myself yesterday (after making these bushings for over four years!).
At least now you can see first-hand why we like them so much!
Member
Yeah. My first M Roadster never did have the sliding seat problem, even after 50K miles.How ironic.
At least now you can see first-hand why we like them so much!
My current one (bought last April) developed the problem a couple months after I bought it, at only 24K miles.
Since we had our first snowfall the other day, and there is now salt on the roads around here, my car is officially "put away".
After the bushing job, I'm only able to test out the seats while driving up and down my driveway; but even that is enough to tell the difference.
Can't wait for Spring!
Member
Doug, did you bother with the power supply?
Member
No, I didn't.
I carefully counted the threads showing below the bushing carrier, before I took it off the screw; so I knew just where to put it when I reassembled it.
And of course, I did one side at a time.
The only use I can think of for the power supply would be to check the seat motor operation before replacing the seat.
That wouldn't be a bad idea, I suppose; but since I didn't have a power supply handy, I opted to do it the the more "risky" way.
I had no problems at all.
DO IT YOURSELF.
The power supply is mostly a convenience, I think. It really came in handy for me because I re-greased every friction point I could reach under the seat and moving the sliders with the motor made it easy to work the grease everywhere it needs to be.
Member
That makes sense!
I didn't grease things very thoroughly; but then again, my seats never get adjusted.
Member
Great post, and sorry to revive and old thread--just one additional note for people who come across this in the future as I did today:
ONE BIG TIP for the Whalen seat bushings. When sanding them to size, the threaded nut that sits between the two bushing should be snug, but you should be able to press it in with your fingers, and it should be able to slide side-to-side with a firm push once it's seated.
If you make the threaded nut a press fit, and hit it in with a mallet, as suggested in Shish-ka-bob, THE SEAT WILL NOT MOVE FORE AND AFT. Maybe you will get lucky, but I didn't. The bushings need to "center" themselves a bit so they don't bind the threaded rods. I tried just about everything else when the seat wouldn't move and this was indeed the problem.
10 135
06 Lotus Elise
71 TR6
Member
Phew. I just finished mine. It took me two hours to do the driver's seat (including vacuuming, counting change, and cleaning the leather. I think I'll let the passenger slide for a while...
A couple more tips.
When you sand the bushings, assuming you are doing it by hand on a sheet of sandpaper, the side away from you sands thinner than the side near you. Turn it around every so often so that it ends up uniform thickness.
When I took mine out, the seat was very far back so there was only one thread showing after the carrier. When I put it back together, I couldn't get it to go all the way down-something was hitting. I ended up screwing both carriers 10 turns further on and it went all the way in first try.
Also, the flexible driveshaft slides into the motor and the "carriage bolt". When you take the carriage bolt assembly out, the driveshaft may come with it or it may stay in the motor. I found that if I left it in the motor, I couldn't get it attached to the carriage bolt. If you pull it out of the motor and attach it to the end of the carriage bolt, it's easy to guide it into the motor.
In my 96 roadster there was almost nothing left to the original bushing. Looked like grease.
Thanks to Doug and everyone else who contributed their wisdom.
Member
Sure you wouldn't prefer to do the other seat right away?
The second one goes MUCH faster than the first, in my experience.
DO IT YOURSELF.
That's a good tip. I didn't think to include that.
Doug's right about doing both. You have to do them while you are interested, or it will be too easy to "do it next weekend". I have a box of those projects.
Member
I have had my bushings in a similar box for over 2 Homecomings,That's a good tip. I didn't think to include that.
Doug's right about doing both. You have to do them while you are interested, or it will be too easy to "do it next weekend". I have a box of those projects.
next weekend I should be getting Bobby's M coupe seats for my Z roady. I will be reducing that next weekend project by one as I'm going to do the seat bushings prior to installing the Coupe seats. This way I'll only have to remove the roady seats & drop in the coupe seats. I think I'm adding to the box
Member
OK, OK! I did the passenger seat after dinner (and a tanqueray martini). This could have been a disaster but all went well. It took an hour including cleanup. Another tip:
Put a disk sander on your cordless drill and use that instead of sanding by hand. This cut at least 15 minutes of tedium off the job.
DO IT YOURSELF.
There ya go! Now you can cross that off your list.
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