So my headrests do not lower when the seat is unlatched and tipped forward. I do hear the motor. So I saw the “how to “ videos and this is fixed buy shortening the cable 12 mm

also my headrest do not raise or lower when using the middle switch on the seat adjustment. I do hear the motors

my question is is this the same cable problem or do I have two separate issues, maybe microswitch.

 

Same problem. Shorten the cable sheath and they will work fine.

 

^^ As he said, remove about 12mm of the cable SHEATH, not the cable itself....

 

There seem to be 2 options: basic problem is that there is too much sheath over the cable, or, conversely, not enough cable is sticking out into the headrest mechanism, so

• If you are into $0 fixes, you can make the sheath shorter. There are several techniques, with the result as durable as you can make it.
• Other option is to have a longer cable made by a speedo shop. This is more expensive, but if you get the length right, seems more permanent.
• Third short term non-option is to "lower" the headrest all the way down with the button (the headrest itself is already down) so when you tilt the seat forward, the whole thing remains silent as the controller "knows" the headrest is already down.

Best of luck, keep us posted.

 

Re option 3. Not the case with my car. Pass side headrest is down and tilting seat I still hear motor. Driver side is up and can't force headrest down even trying with switch.
Haven't been able to get past step one to loosen the seat back covering to access the cable. When I do I plan to cut the sheath and reinforce the splice with an electrical butt connector drilled out to sheath od size then cover with heat shrink. No crimp just a press fit on the sheath.

 

Having now done four of these, a single layer of heat shrink alone (preferably the adhesive kind) is appropriately stiff if you use the 3x. I used 3/4" 3x adhesive, such as the Amazon item below. Make sure the cable sheath is straight while it cools down.


When you pull the sheath to cut it, you want to be careful to cut the edges as straight as possible to reduce the tendency to locally torque about the repair long term. I did it with small PVC pipe cutters.

This procedure is pretty easy at this point, usually about an hour including taking it out, finding someone to help me bring it in the house, extensively cleaning the seat internals and cover.

One other bit of advice. On the last one, I was 'playing' with the mechanism with a power drill and managed to munge the little plastic gear at the top of the mechanism with overenthusiastic 'playing'. Advice: don't do that.

Edit: Note that it is so much easier to do this with the seat out of the car (unless you are the size of an oompa-loompa), and it is so easy to take the seat out of the car (4 bolts, 2 connectors, power seat to help you get good position), I see no particular reason to do it in the car.

And you get to vacuum under the seat.

 

so shortened the sheath by 12 mm.( approx 1/2”). The drive cable extends past the flange by about 1 1/4”. This is not enough to pass thru the gearbox and into the motor. Unless I am assembling incorrectly

looks like I need anout 2” of drive cable to pass thru the gearbox and into the motor

1 1/4” past flange

Not enough drive cable to pass thru gearbox

 

That silvery thing at the end of the sheath needs to go further into the black top of the motor. Twist the inner cable and try again until it fully seats. Do by hand or with a pair of pliers. It’s fairly stiff in torsion because you are traveling the mechanism.

when you get it into the right rotation, it will fully seat.

if you cannot put the bracket back on top, you haven’t put the sheath/cable in the right position. Since the cable has an essentially square cross section, the required rotation is somewhere between 0 and 90 degrees. Randomly tweaking it seems to work after a time of two.

 

CRBass

The crimped fitting IS seated in the black gearbox.Its about 3/8" countersunk hole at top.

I believe the drive cable is seated. If it weren't it would have a longer projection past the bottom of th sheath.
Shortening the sheath should have extended the drive cable about 12 MM ( 1/2"). I wish I had measured before shorting the sheath because this doesn't add up

With the sheath assembled to the gearbox the cable is about 1/8" short of extending past the bottom end of the gearbox. Then I have another 1/2" approx of depth into the motor drive.

I think a longer drive cable is the answer

 

Stick your hand up the sheath to the top and make sure it hasn’t somehow come out if the mechanism. Make sure the sheath is pushed up and is not free.

I will say, however, it appears from your pictures that you are not seated in the lower hole.

hard to understand how the cable would now be too short relative to the sheathing with 12 mm removed. So, it’s not seating on one side or the other. Or the cable itself is broken and overlaps in the sheath. Gently pull to rule this unlikely scenario out.

 

To clarify, are you saying the cable will not go down past the horizontal support? Looking at your pictures again, you should have cable freedom to move down below the horizontal support (what you are calling the flange?). If this is the airbag side make sure you have routed the cable the way it was originally, deep in the crack between seat and airbag.

 

CRBass

The pictures are from the passenger side seat. The cable sheath is flexible and mounts up to the plastic gearbox with about 3/8" inserted into the countersunk hole on the gearbox. The clamp mounts correctly across the top. However there is no drive cable extending below the gearbox to insert into the motor. With the cables seated at top the driven end extends beyond the sheath approx 1 1/4" just enough to pass thru the gearbox but not reach the motor shaft.

I took apart the drivers side ( also non operative) to compare and same thing. Sheath correctly seated in gearbox ( the black plastic device between the motor and sheath) but no cable extension below to reach motor

I removed both drive cables thinking they might be broken and both are 18" long. I looked up at top of seat and cable/sheath appears to be intact at headrest end.

If these are the original cables and sheath hard to imagine the headrests ever worked.

I am off to a speedo shop tomorrow and will buy longer cables, maybe 18 3/4"

 

So, if your cables are 18" long, that is the standard length. E.g.

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...q-69635/page2/

If you've cut 12 mm out of the sheath, adding another 19 mm (3/4") to the cable will presumably make the cables protrude 19 mm (3/4") more than the TSB suggests. If you haven't shortened the sheath, that has been reported to work (in the thread above).

Not clear why this does not reassemble properly for you, but it is not apparent it is the length of the cable. Hope that works for you.

 

First thanks to all who helped and held my hand

So I am on my way to the Speedo shop to get 2 custom length cables. I am thinking if the car left the factory with 18” cables there must be a solution. I stop by the Jag shop that advised me of the TSB for the headrests. I have the passenger seat all apart and ask for their help. He says he cuts about a thumbs width of sheath, sometimes more

So I ditch the trip to the speedo shop probably saving me $50 for 2 cables

I go home and redo my splice cut another 1/4” off the sheath so that the cable extends past the gearbox/ microswitch. Test fit and it works. On my spice I used a piece of 3/8” diameter x 1 1/2” long copper tubing to strengthen the joint. Wrapped it with 3M electrician tape then sealed it with heat shrink . Couldn’t find adhesive heat shrink so standard will have do. I also greased the cable while I had it out. Motors are very quite now.

Did the drivers side same technique.

BTW the shop said they don’t do it per the TSB. They cut the sheath in place not disconnecting the cable/ motor saving some time. They wrap the joint with electrical tape. He said get the good tape not cheap Chinese tape.

so I now have functional headrests that I may use once a month.

 

That’s great! Glad you worked it out.

Thus far l, I have used the headrest adjustment once on each seat (to get them down from the godforsaken fully deployed position and put it in an appropriate place for each of the two usual drivers and fully down for the passengers).

Except for the cars exercising them on folding down the seat, no one else appears to touch them.

 

Fifth seat headrest repair. I really like the 3X heat adhesive heat shrink for this repair as noted above. Took under a half hour this time.

Sixth upcoming, but will not be so quick, the seat has more problems than just the headrest. Since it's the passenger seat, its priority is just north of mucking out the Augean stables.

Thus far, I have not laid hands on a 2001-2002 XK8 that did not have this problem.


Head shrink in the pretty/contrasting red

 

Having done seven of these now (for six seats), the adhesive kind of heat shrink seems fairly essential if you don't want to do it again. My first one was done with two layers of non-adhesive heat shrink to clamp down harder than a single layer, eventually loosened at the top and stopped working after a year a couple of weeks ago. The bottom of the heat shrink was still quite tight, however. Fixed again now.

Old 'broken' one with the white outer heat shrink was loose in the double layer at the top of the repair.


New adhesive heat shrink in red, very solid at the top and bottom, and appropriately stiff in the repair.

 

Did the passenger-side headrest cable using an adhesive heat shrink-wrap segment shortly after purchasing the car in early February 2012. The repair continues to function today (possibly because we never move the headrests unless absolutely necessary). Have not had to make the repair on the driver-side headrest cable yet....

 

It's funny, I don't move them either since I only change size in the horizontal and vertical directions slowly. I only noticed because it made the 'not working sound' and didn't lower the headrest when the seatback was tilted forward on the latch. I don't tilt the seat forward very often either, maybe once or twice a month, since most often, I can access the back from the frequently open top.

So, maybe 50-100 cycles to failure for the nonadhesive solution in a garaged car (n=1). My wife tilts her seat all the time. So, at least double the cycles on the nonfailed adhesive shrinktube solution (again n=1).

 

Well Dale you said it before I did. I never use the adjustment on my headrests, well maybe because they don't work. Have looked at these threads in the past and considered doing the fix but, I can live with it and I never felt a need to adjust them.

Cheers!