Gotta lose a few pounds :-). The frame supporting driver seat cracked its welds front left and right. Good news, I have a great welder nearby. He looked this morning- gave me homework, I've gotta get the metal frame off the seat.

Just too much danger of fire in place. Figured I'd just launch this before diving in, see if anyone has advice / lessons learned. How to remove seat structure from the chassis supporting it?

Hey stay posted, I may have found a vinyl semi flexible replacement for the rubber support under the seat. The one that splits over time. I'm going to give it a go, will let you know!

John

 

Well I took a close look. My little brain figured there'd be a wooden seat frame attached to the metal chassis below the seat. Nope - the seat foam rubber sits in the chassis & the leather is stretched across it.

 

Misremembered that I had taken good pictures of this from my seat cover replacement. In any case, the lower seat unbolts from the seat base in mine (may not be yours). I don't think that any of the seat cover hog rings go to the frame in this seat version.

The picture I have shows the result, not the path

Lower seat off of frame.
...

 

Thanks!!! That's exactly what i need to do. Hopefully it'll be looking like that tomorrow with a little elbow grease.

John

 

Update for reference. Leather and foam are released and folded back. Going to welder in morning.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO REMOVE SEAT SWITCHES to fold back or remove seats leather! Don't waste time like I did. But this leads into a more important reference. . .

Do I need to remove individual switch covers (the part you touch when moving seat back forth. Etc) - No!

But I removed the switch cover for back & forth:

How the F#$k do I reattach the switch for back forth up down?

Well you probably looked this up after 20 or 30 minutes of trying to align the metal C shaped (C shaped with 90 degree angled corners) motion restricter & the white center plastic back forth switch & the tiny black up down switches!!! .

Since the switch cover came off and the metal piece remained in place, one would reassemble it this way right? (Hell no, I just wasted way too much time discovering this is practicallyimpossibe)
Just pull and unsnap the metal piece. Insert it in the switch cover 1st. Now when you align the switch cover with the rectangular white plastic center switch, the metal bracket snaps back in easily at same time as switch cover.

Guys this little step takes the job from incredible complexity to no brainer :-).

For anyone thinking why didn't he take photo, believe me you'll understand when you get there. I'm not up for tempting fate just to get a photo ;-).

John

 

This is closed. Great success.

Frame welded, put her back together today. Don't laugh too hard: she's all reassembled, leather stretched and secured, one problem, a 12 pin black female connector dangling. WTF do I attach it? Well I spent about 10 minutes searching every mm of the underside for the connector. Finally I realized - you've gotta connect the seat switches John- duh. :-)

As far as reassembly not too difficult. Stretch and attach the front of the leather before you install the seat module. Maybe if I were to do it again I'd take really detailed ones on wire routing and where its wite tied attached. Not so obvious on reassembly and God knows with the seat moving fore and aft, up and down, you don't need loose wires flapping around.

Hey, really (really) good news. It looks like I've found a good cheap replacement for the rubber butt sag preventer (yeah probably not Jaguars proper name . . .) The 10 inch x 10 inch mat suspended under seat foam, That splits with age.

I purchased a piece of vinyl underlayment at home depot. It stretches a bit though not quite as much as rubber, but I made 1 for driver's side - feels perfect! Huge difference!!!

I'm going to make 1 for passenger side, will take photos, evaluate driver side performance, and post instructions in a few days. So far so good!

Cost both sides: vinyl $5.00. Glue: $7

John