Jermsy
Member
- Joined
- April 29, 2015
- Messages
- 12
- Reaction score
- 4
- City, State
- Fort Worth, TX
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 2001 Ford Explorer ST
Okay, so I'm selling my 2001 Sport Trac and I wanted the next owner to have a great truck so I've fixed everything that can be fixed - except the seat motor.
I am extremely tech-savvy so I know how the motors work - just like the window motors, they're reverse polarity driven electromagnets. However, I couldn't find a single reliable source detailing how to REPAIR these motors without spending $500 on an entirely new bracket with the motor or just using a drill to get the seat to a comfortable position and just leaving it.
I didn't take pictures as I went along so I'll do my best to describe how I fixed mine using pictures from the web and microsoft paint - this is going to take me a few hours to write up since I'm trying to actually work at the same time and I'll have different steps broken down in comments to this post.
I just want to say - this isn't standard operating procedure - it's not pretty - I'm not responsible if you break something - this is just what worked for me. My seat was already broken so I didn't care if I broke it more.
Things you'll need:
10mm wrench or socket
11mm wrench or socket
T55 torque head
T30 torque head
T15 torque head
Needle nose pliers
Trim removal tool or flat head screw driver
Phillips head screw driver
Multimeter or 12v tester (if you've got one that displays ohms it'll help determining if the switch is bad)
Electronic parts cleaner
White lithium grease
Pull the seat out - I don't think I need to do a tutorial on this because there's a bunch of info available.
Before you disconnect the battery, I recommend disconnecting the black, two wire harness underneath the seat in the rear middle of the seat. there's a black/white wire and a solid black wire - use your multimeter and check to make sure you're getting 12v. Black/white wire is positive - solid black is negative. If you're not getting 12v - you may have just found your issue. If you are getting 12v - go ahead and disconnect your battery so you don't have any open circuits laying around.
Disconnect the grey two wire plug leading to the seat belt on the right hand side of the seat.
Us the T55 torque head to pull the plastic cover off the seat belt bracket on the right hand side.
Then, again use the T55 to unscrew the seatbelt bracket.
There's four 10mm bolts holding the seat down - mine were a pain to get to because my seat was stuck so I had to use a regular old 10mm wrench for the two rear bolts but the front two were easy to get with my impact gun.
Okay cool, you're ready to manhandle the seat and pull it out. Get that sucker out of there.
Now you've got the seat out.
Now let's get the plastic cover off the left hand side.
you'll need to unclip the plastic upholstery clips in the rear of the seat to access one of the phillips head screws - do that. unscrew the phillips head back there.
Use the trim removal tool or flat head screw driver - or your masculine hands and pull the lumbar support crank off. There's another phillips head behind it - unscrew that.
There's two phillips heads underneath the seat holding the plastic trim on - unscrew those.
The whole plastic trim should come off with the control switch. You can unscrew the two screws holding the switch in place and set it aside but I'd make note of which way is up on the switch so you don't re-install it backwards. Set the plastic trim aside for now.
Disconnect the wiring harness leading to the actual seat motor - it's a brown plug with a bunch of different colored wires leading to the 3 motor unit. There's 4 10mm bolts holding the seat bracket to the seat. Unscrew those. congratulations - you've got the seat bracket off. Now the real work begins.
Draw arrows on the three motor unit so you remember which way is up and forward. It'll help in reassembly.
There's two gear rods - front right and rear left. The're held on by 11mm bolts and crimp nuts (whatever you call them) Unscrew the bolts.
There's four T30 torque head screws holding the neat bracket motor assembly together - unscrew those.
Now there's two "tubes" going from the front motor to both sides of the seat rack. Inside these tubes are springy pieces of metal - sort of like throttle/speedometer cable - you can use a pair of pliers - grip is in the middle and gently twist to pull them out. There's youtube videos showing how to do this step for people that just want to do the easy thing and adjust the seat with a drill. i.e. this dude
Okay the motor unit should fall out now with the two screw gears/brackets attached. They're attached with T15 torque heads. unscrew them. there's tubes with the same springy rods going to these screw gears - leave them with their respective gears and set those aside - now you just have the three motor unit.
Again let me emphasize - my seat was already broken so I didn't care if I fixed it or not.
this 3 motor unit has a total of 12 metal tabs pinched down over the plastic housing. make note of which way the cylinders are facing - they're magnetic and if you re-install them backwards, I imagine something bad might happen. I used needle nose pliers to bend these tabs out and disassemble the motors - there I found my problem. grease from the gears had made it's way into the front motor (which controls front and back movement) and it was badly gunked up. I used electrical parts cleaner and spray the hell out of everything in the motor and let it dry - then repeated cleaning and drying a few more times. Once everything looked brand new and shiny I put the motor assembly back together - this can be a pain - the springy copper leads are hard to get back in place - contacting the copper wheel of the motor - I did this with a paperclip pushing the contacts in place. Remember the motors should magnetically snap into place - if you're having to force the assembly to stay together you've probably got one of the cylinders facing the wrong way. I put it all back together and used needle nose pliers again to crimp the tabs back in place. Before I re-assembled the whole seat, I took the wiring harness with the switch off the seat, took it back out to my truck, reconnected the harness, reconnected the battery and tested it and voila HOLY CRAP IT WORKED POWER SEATS SUPER AWESOME AMAZING TIME. I reassembled everything in reverse and this thing works like it was brand new.
I'll post pics with ms paint drawings/notes and some more comments on them later and try my best to remember the wiring colors - I remember red/blue and yellow went to the front motor from the brown harness.
I am extremely tech-savvy so I know how the motors work - just like the window motors, they're reverse polarity driven electromagnets. However, I couldn't find a single reliable source detailing how to REPAIR these motors without spending $500 on an entirely new bracket with the motor or just using a drill to get the seat to a comfortable position and just leaving it.
I didn't take pictures as I went along so I'll do my best to describe how I fixed mine using pictures from the web and microsoft paint - this is going to take me a few hours to write up since I'm trying to actually work at the same time and I'll have different steps broken down in comments to this post.
I just want to say - this isn't standard operating procedure - it's not pretty - I'm not responsible if you break something - this is just what worked for me. My seat was already broken so I didn't care if I broke it more.
Things you'll need:
10mm wrench or socket
11mm wrench or socket
T55 torque head
T30 torque head
T15 torque head
Needle nose pliers
Trim removal tool or flat head screw driver
Phillips head screw driver
Multimeter or 12v tester (if you've got one that displays ohms it'll help determining if the switch is bad)
Electronic parts cleaner
White lithium grease
Pull the seat out - I don't think I need to do a tutorial on this because there's a bunch of info available.
Before you disconnect the battery, I recommend disconnecting the black, two wire harness underneath the seat in the rear middle of the seat. there's a black/white wire and a solid black wire - use your multimeter and check to make sure you're getting 12v. Black/white wire is positive - solid black is negative. If you're not getting 12v - you may have just found your issue. If you are getting 12v - go ahead and disconnect your battery so you don't have any open circuits laying around.
Disconnect the grey two wire plug leading to the seat belt on the right hand side of the seat.
Us the T55 torque head to pull the plastic cover off the seat belt bracket on the right hand side.
Then, again use the T55 to unscrew the seatbelt bracket.
There's four 10mm bolts holding the seat down - mine were a pain to get to because my seat was stuck so I had to use a regular old 10mm wrench for the two rear bolts but the front two were easy to get with my impact gun.
Okay cool, you're ready to manhandle the seat and pull it out. Get that sucker out of there.
Now you've got the seat out.
Now let's get the plastic cover off the left hand side.
you'll need to unclip the plastic upholstery clips in the rear of the seat to access one of the phillips head screws - do that. unscrew the phillips head back there.
Use the trim removal tool or flat head screw driver - or your masculine hands and pull the lumbar support crank off. There's another phillips head behind it - unscrew that.
There's two phillips heads underneath the seat holding the plastic trim on - unscrew those.
The whole plastic trim should come off with the control switch. You can unscrew the two screws holding the switch in place and set it aside but I'd make note of which way is up on the switch so you don't re-install it backwards. Set the plastic trim aside for now.
Disconnect the wiring harness leading to the actual seat motor - it's a brown plug with a bunch of different colored wires leading to the 3 motor unit. There's 4 10mm bolts holding the seat bracket to the seat. Unscrew those. congratulations - you've got the seat bracket off. Now the real work begins.
Draw arrows on the three motor unit so you remember which way is up and forward. It'll help in reassembly.
There's two gear rods - front right and rear left. The're held on by 11mm bolts and crimp nuts (whatever you call them) Unscrew the bolts.
There's four T30 torque head screws holding the neat bracket motor assembly together - unscrew those.
Now there's two "tubes" going from the front motor to both sides of the seat rack. Inside these tubes are springy pieces of metal - sort of like throttle/speedometer cable - you can use a pair of pliers - grip is in the middle and gently twist to pull them out. There's youtube videos showing how to do this step for people that just want to do the easy thing and adjust the seat with a drill. i.e. this dude
Okay the motor unit should fall out now with the two screw gears/brackets attached. They're attached with T15 torque heads. unscrew them. there's tubes with the same springy rods going to these screw gears - leave them with their respective gears and set those aside - now you just have the three motor unit.
Again let me emphasize - my seat was already broken so I didn't care if I fixed it or not.
this 3 motor unit has a total of 12 metal tabs pinched down over the plastic housing. make note of which way the cylinders are facing - they're magnetic and if you re-install them backwards, I imagine something bad might happen. I used needle nose pliers to bend these tabs out and disassemble the motors - there I found my problem. grease from the gears had made it's way into the front motor (which controls front and back movement) and it was badly gunked up. I used electrical parts cleaner and spray the hell out of everything in the motor and let it dry - then repeated cleaning and drying a few more times. Once everything looked brand new and shiny I put the motor assembly back together - this can be a pain - the springy copper leads are hard to get back in place - contacting the copper wheel of the motor - I did this with a paperclip pushing the contacts in place. Remember the motors should magnetically snap into place - if you're having to force the assembly to stay together you've probably got one of the cylinders facing the wrong way. I put it all back together and used needle nose pliers again to crimp the tabs back in place. Before I re-assembled the whole seat, I took the wiring harness with the switch off the seat, took it back out to my truck, reconnected the harness, reconnected the battery and tested it and voila HOLY CRAP IT WORKED POWER SEATS SUPER AWESOME AMAZING TIME. I reassembled everything in reverse and this thing works like it was brand new.
I'll post pics with ms paint drawings/notes and some more comments on them later and try my best to remember the wiring colors - I remember red/blue and yellow went to the front motor from the brown harness.
