body and interior Seat Back Rake Adjustment

[jpsimons]

So, New Years Eve I stumble back to my car (a 1600 cabriolet) and take a nap in the passenger seat, putting the seat reclined as far as it would go. Later on (and under the legal limit), I tried to put it back but the mechanism wasn't working -- it's a knob you pull up, which I assume is the same on 1600s and 2002s, and it just isn't disengaging anything. So I have a stuck fully reclined passenger seat.

 

Anyone have a diagram of the inner workings, or know where I could put some pliers to twist or pull the mechanism directly? I think I'll have to take the seat out to get a better look.

 

 

[jgerock]

Pictures of the seat hinges in my 69 2002. I offer these for graphical purposes only since I cannot advise OP how to fix his reclining mechanism (unless the spring is broken).

 

 

Edited January 4, 2014 by jgerock

[Mike Self]

There's a trick to reassembling. Apparently you took the seat recliner mechanism apart, based on the pictures you included with your post.  The two recliner assemblies are not set on the torsion bar that connects them so that they're parallel.  It's not intuitive, but it's the way they are.  I went through this on my '73 when I dismantled a seat and didn't observe how things came apart.  Took me awhile to figure out.

 

I did a Roundel column on this exact problem; drop me a message with your e-mail address (I can't attach anything to the instant message reply thru the board) and I'll send you a copy.

 

cheers

mike

[jpsimons]

Ha, got it. Thanks for the info, but I was able to pull the "let someone in the back seat" lever at the same time as the rake lever, and just got it to release. Not sure if it would work again but for now I have a passenger seat in functional position. Not doing the full recline again.

[LarsAlpina]

Take a look if all screws on the hinges are still sitting tight (two small on the upper leg, one special big one on the lower leg). Especially the small ones tend to get loose sometimes. If screws are loose and there is play the "torsion bar" as Mike called it (marked with the green arrow in Jim´s photo) cannot transport the force you exercise on the lever with the knob from the hinge with the lever to the one on the other side of the seat.

With pulling the lever you directly unlock the hinge you have your hands on, but if torsion bar does not press over far enough because of play the hinge on the other side will not unlock.

 

With the old metal hinges I also saw it quite often that the clamping assembly of the lever was bent and the lever itself got loose a bit (red arrow). If so that can also cause problems with unlocking the reclining mechanism.

 

 

Best regards, Lars.