> Jensen Healey & Jensen GT Tech > Body & interior stuff > Help! Seat won't tilt forward, can't tighten track mounts |
> Jensen Healey & Jensen GT Tech > Body & interior stuff > Help! Seat won't tilt forward, can't tighten track mounts |
| Moderated by: Greg Fletcher | ||
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srq2002 Member
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My new-to-me JH has a problem that has stumped me. The seat mounting is loose, but the seat will not tip forward to allow access to the track. The lever on the side of the seat back is not releasing the seat to tip forward. Any suggestions for getting around this? |
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Frank Schwartz Member
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Yes...the tilt lever on the upper side of the seat back is connected to a cable which pulls a hook on the underside to allow the back to go forward...take a good look under there, on the driver's side it will be on the left side as is the lever...you might need a mirror to see...you can with some difficulty manually unhook it and once you have done that you can determine if the cable has broken or come loose or needs adjustment, which you can do, once you get the seat out and see what it going on....and put a bit of penetrating oil in the screw holes that the seats mount to. There is a small square nut that the bolts thread into and they can easily be loosened so they rotate and you cannot get the bolts out...use care and don't force things...those nuts are "captive" and the metal that holds the in place is easily bent... |
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roland11a Member
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Hi Not all seats have a cable. Mine have two levers, one to adjust the seat rake and the other to tilt the whole back forward. If anything like mine it could be very stiff due to rust and age. |
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azvat1 Member
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The message board has been a great help to me if understanding and resolving issues with my 1974 J-H. So I'm hoping that someone has a solution to my latest issue. Evidently the PO or someone attempted to loosen a seat bolt and the nut is now loose and the bolt won't un-thread. Does anyone have a solution for removing this bolt? I need to remove the seat to have it rebuilt. Thanks |
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Tom Bradley Member
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Is this the allen key bolt that holds the seat rail to the frame of the car? If so, the nut should be accessible underneath the car. You should then be able to grip the nut with a wrench, socket or vise grip while turning the bolt with the hex key (or vice versa). Check how badly damaged the end of the bolt sticking out below the nut underneath the car is first. You may need lots of WD40 before you try removing this. If the lower end of the bolt is badly damaged enough, like being bent from scraping something, you might need to tighten the nut and cut off the damaged end of the bolt as close to the nut as possible before trying to get it apart. I have had to do this a few times. Very tedious, but it works eventually. Scraped knuckles are a common side effect. If you have to do this, you will probably need a frameless hacksaw: one where the blade slides into the handle. Last edited on 03-22-2016 05:07 am by Tom Bradley |
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Brett Gibson JH5 20497 Member
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The nuts on my car are welded to the inside of the seat rails and can't be gotten to, if yours are like mine the only thing to do if they spin is to cut them off to get the seat out. Once out then I would use longer bolts as Tom describes to fasten the seats back in. Brett Update, I should have said the seat "rails" are bolted to the seat, the seat "channels" are welded to the floor and the rails bolted to them with allen head bolts facing downward, if the allen head bolt spins then the welded nut inside the seat "Channel" has broken it's weld and you will need to cut them to get the seat out. Sorry for the confusion. Last edited on 03-22-2016 06:26 pm by Brett Gibson JH5 20497 |
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Tom Bradley Member
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If the nut is inside the frame rather than outside then it should not be keeping the rail from lifting up. Try removing the other three bolts and see if the seat assembly can be removed. Once out it should not be too hard to get the nut and bolt apart. |
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Tom Bradley Member
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Another possibility is that the nut is stripped rather than loose. In that case, after removing the other three bolts, try prying the rail up with a screwdriver while turning the bolt. It should come up fairly easily. |
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Jensen Healey Super Moderator 
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Welcome to the message board Azvat1! Both of the my cars had the nuts welded inside the cross channels. I had to grind off the Allen heads of several bolts to get the seats out. I drilled through the floor pan and used fender washers on the new, longer Allen head bolts that I found at Ace hardware. Good luck, Kurt |
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azvat1 Member
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Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I will tackle it this weekend. |
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redracer Member
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Having taken apart many rusted cars(a huge problem for those of living east of the Mississippi) I've done what many of you have already done, namely use a carbide wheel on a Dremel tool to cut the top of the top of the allen bolt off to remove the seat. The 2 outer bolts have the "captured" 5/16X 24threads/inch which will "spin" in place after rusting. Using a thin carbide wheel on a Dremel to remove this is fairly easy. Installing a new square nut(difficult to obtain in the "fine" threads; had to order 100 at over $1/nut!). Use a jewelers torch to reseal the cut pieces and plenty of grease for the nuts(all 4). note: the original allen bolts use a 7/32" wrench whereas replacement bolts will have a 1/4" allen wrench! |
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