Seat rubs against tunnel

[SteveDraz]

Standard seats on my ‘69 are rubbing on the tunnel. The tab that the seats rest on are rubbing the tunnel and I haven’t even put the carpet in. I tried pushing seat towards door and retightening. No help. Anyone heard of this before?

[Conserv]

Photos?

 

Regards,

 

Steve

 

[SteveDraz]

All I can think of is that PO welded a bigger "tab" for the seat to sit on.

[Steve Tochi]

Steve,

Since this is a calling all steves thread, It looks like the PO modified the rails, looks "abby normal". Maybe modified to put some other sport seats in, then when back to originals.

Steve

[VWJake]

Perhaps a foolish thought... The upholstery doesn't look stock. Is it possible that in recovering the seats that the lower units got swapped? I honestly don't even know if they are different side to side or not, just throwing it out there.

[SteveDraz]

Hmmmm, side-to-side.  I did rebuilt the tilt forward mechanism on both seats.  Maybe I swapped the bottoms if that's possible.  My handle/lever to release to seat for front-to-back sliding adjustment is towards the tunnel on driver's seat.  Or should it be towards the door?

[Conserv]

The covers are, indeed, as Jake points out, not original — by any means. I looked at a few of my photographs to see if, for instance, a prior owner might have been able to, easily, move the holes in the seat frame for the seat rails. It looks unlikely. I see, in Steve D’s photos, the passenger side floor, where the lower component of the seat rails attaches, and that looks quite normal. I don’t know if the drivers side is, likewise, “normal”.

 

Jake’s point about swapped seat bottoms is interesting and certainly worth pursuing! There was a thread a year or two ago about someone swapping left and right seats, and the modifications that had to be made — it wasn’t a very big deal.

 

I also wondered, because these cars have 50 years of history behind them, whether someone might have removed the floor elements that support the seats — say, to install and lower e30 seats — and a later owner put those floor elements back in, almost right!

 

Below are the bottoms of a couple 1972 front seats. Steve D, do yours look like these from underneath?

 

Regards,

 

Steve C.

 

[Conserv]

22 minutes ago, SteveDraz said:

Hmmmm, side-to-side.  I did rebuilt the tilt forward mechanism on both seats.  Maybe I swapped the bottoms if that's possible.  My handle/lever to release to seat for front-to-back sliding adjustment is towards the tunnel on driver's seat.  Or should it be towards the door?

I believe, on a ‘69, the fore-aft adjustment lever is on the right side, so toward the tunnel for the driver’s seat. Later cars use a floor-mounted release lever for fore-aft adjustment. And that is always on the door side of the seat.

 

Just for background, have these seats worked in this car at any time since you purchased the car? Stated differently, is this a new problem? And if so, what have you done to the seats and car since the seats last worked?

 

Regards,

 

Steve

 

Edited March 24, 2020 by Conserv

[Henning]

27 minutes ago, SteveDraz said:

 My handle/lever to release to seat for front-to-back sliding adjustment is towards the tunnel on driver's seat.  Or should it be towards the door?

 

As I can recall, it's correct towards the tunnel on both sides. 69 owners may chime in here to confirm.

But this has nothing to do with the seat's subframe. If the passenger seat rubs the same way, you may think about a side-to-side-swap.

 

hen

 

[SteveDraz]

Seats worked fine before I took everything apart.  Interior was a bit ratty so I might not have noticed.  They still work real nice and smooth but I noticed the tab rubbing.

 

The underneath does look like your underneath.  I need to put the passenger seat in real quick to see if there's rubbing on that side also.  Are the bottoms to these cars handed?  It looks like there's more of a cut out in one of the corners than other.

[VWJake]

I'd look myself but I just dont have the time at the moment, but REALOEM might give you some insight about which parts (frames possibly) are different side to side.

[Conserv]

18 hours ago, SteveDraz said:

Seats worked fine before I took everything apart.  Interior was a bit ratty so I might not have noticed.  They still work real nice and smooth but I noticed the tab rubbing.

 

The underneath does look like your underneath.  I need to put the passenger seat in real quick to see if there's rubbing on that side also.  Are the bottoms to these cars handed?  It looks like there's more of a cut out in one of the corners than other.

The front seat bottoms are definitely asymmetric, with a larger “bite” taken out of the sides closer to the driveline tunnel. Thus, you’re showing a left (driver’s) seat above and attached below is a gummihaar pad for a left seat.

 

The pad provides much of this asymmetry if I recall correctly. The differences between the left and right frames are more subtle, I believe.

 

Did you remove the recliners (hinges) from the seats? If so, I was wondering if the inner recliners could have ended up not quite seated against the frames.  Scratching for traction here!

 

Regards,

 

Steve

 

 

 

 

Edited March 25, 2020 by Conserv

[Mike Self]

The clearance between the seat back bracket "ear" and the tunnel is very close on my '69--just barely clears the carpet, which has very little padding under it.  I think your problem is related to the thickness of the soundproofing you have on the tunnel.  

 

The seat back release lever (atop the edge of the seat back) should be outboard on both front seats.  Left and right seats are not interchangeable if you want 'em to fit properly, neither as a complete seat or by component (right seat bottom on a left seat back, or vice versa).  You stated tha the release lever on the driver's seat is on the tunnel side; that means at least the seat back--if not the whole seat--is a passenger seat.  Also, IIRC the fore and aft release lever (part of the seat on pre-modell 71 cars) is outboard on both front seats--towards the door side.  That's because the notches that hold the seat in position are on the outside track on both seats.  

 

That may well be contributing to your problem.

 

mike

[Conserv]

12 hours ago, mike said:

 

... Also, IIRC the fore and aft release lever (part of the seat on pre-modell 71 cars) is outboard on both front seats--towards the door side.  That's because the notches that hold the seat in position are on the outside track on both seats.  

 

That may well be contributing to your problem.

 

mike

Mike,

 

I believe he has pre-Modell 71 front seats in a pre-Modell 71 car — both 1969. I showed photos of Modell 71 seats, from my ‘73, because that’s all I had!

 

But I believe your excess-insulation-on-the-driveline diagnosis might be the ticket: the seats were OK before the current round of restorations.

 

Best regards,

 

Steve

 

[SteveDraz]

All I've got is the Noico stuff which is about an 1/8" thick.  It's definitely thinner than the carpet that I threw out.