fatfenders
Member
- Joined
- September 2, 2008
- Messages
- 44
- Reaction score
- 2
- City, State
- Folsom, CA
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- '04 Sport Trac V6 4x4
I recently posted a thread about my driver's seat only moving in the 'back' 2" of travel along with my diagnosis/solution to the problem. I couldn't have been more wrong! When "Colintrax" posted his reply, critical of my solution I thought about it some more and realized he was spot on and believe I now have the correct diagnosis so let me try this again (in case anyone else has the same problem).
When I disassembled the seat belt rail I saw this deformation of the plastic cover and thought it was the 'cause' of the problem. Now I believe it was the effect. It's now my best guess that something fell down between the console and the seat when my wife drove it(i.e. seat forward) and the next I drove it when I ran the seat back. While traveling back, that 'something' bound up the rail, deforming the front supporting arm and the geometry in general causing the engagement pin to be forced up into one of the rear teeth and deforming the plastic cover in the process.
From that time on (most likely) the seat would no longer travel more than apx' 2" due to the bent linkage.
So, doing as Colintrax suggested, I beat it down to Pick-n-Pull and fetched a good plastic cover for 4 bucks (removed the square stock I had tacked onto the teeth) and put things back to normal.
Now here is how I think this setup works...
The plastic cover is there so everything runs smoothly for normal seat operation. But in the event of a high forward 'G' load incident the weight of the occupant pulls everything forward and up, causing the engagement pin to deform the plastic cover and engage the closest tooth.
From this view (seat all the way forward) its easy to see how a foreign object could get down there and create the problem as I describe it.
When I disassembled the seat belt rail I saw this deformation of the plastic cover and thought it was the 'cause' of the problem. Now I believe it was the effect. It's now my best guess that something fell down between the console and the seat when my wife drove it(i.e. seat forward) and the next I drove it when I ran the seat back. While traveling back, that 'something' bound up the rail, deforming the front supporting arm and the geometry in general causing the engagement pin to be forced up into one of the rear teeth and deforming the plastic cover in the process.
From that time on (most likely) the seat would no longer travel more than apx' 2" due to the bent linkage.
So, doing as Colintrax suggested, I beat it down to Pick-n-Pull and fetched a good plastic cover for 4 bucks (removed the square stock I had tacked onto the teeth) and put things back to normal.
Now here is how I think this setup works...
The plastic cover is there so everything runs smoothly for normal seat operation. But in the event of a high forward 'G' load incident the weight of the occupant pulls everything forward and up, causing the engagement pin to deform the plastic cover and engage the closest tooth.
From this view (seat all the way forward) its easy to see how a foreign object could get down there and create the problem as I describe it.
