Greetings All,

On my '02, the driver's seat recline is suddenly acting up on the inboard side. I leaned back a little too hard trying to reach something on the back seat and the recline collapsed partway, but only on the one side. The outboard side is still okay.

I was able to apply brute force and ignorance to realign the seatback. It's like a gear has jumped or something like that. I'm currently on a trip, several hundred miles from home. I've got the recline in an acceptable position and think it will be okay if I don't adjust it until I get home.

Has anybody encountered a similar problem with the recline? Just wondering what I might see when I get home and can investigate further.

 

It may not be the same but in my old XJ40 the seat back frame snaped at the base on one side next to the recline mech. I had to take the seal apart, weld the frame back together and re-assemble the seat! It took ages!!

Mellow

 

Update: There is no update. I haven't touched the seat recline yet, and won't until I can do without the car for a few days if needed. Hopefully this weekend.

Will post a legit update once I actually know more. But in the meantime, I didn't want anybody thinking I'd pulled a Steve by not wrapping up my own thread.

 

Update on the update:

I finally had enough time to tear into the seat recline. I had grandiose plans to document what I found and post pics, etc. But then reality set in. This was one of the most frustrating tasks I've ever accomplished on a vehicle. It was very obvious the hinge/gear assembly was NOT designed to be serviced. I bet the official Jaguar procedure was probably just replace the entire seat. After tearing the seat apart, I was at wit's end trying to make sense of how to repair it and then get it all back together again. It was such a brutal job, I'd rather give Rosie O'Donnell a pedicure than do this again. The idea of documenting this repair went out the window when I realized this seemed to be a very rare failure of interest to practically nobody else, and I was rapidly running out of time before needing the car back on the road.

The hinge/gear assembly is a something of a planetary gear drive, with a motor-driven eccentric to walk the gears and drive the tilt. Inside this eccentric are several pieces, including one VERY stout spring. This spring is what made reassembly so difficult. Even using a threaded rod to compress the spring, it was very difficult to line up the intricate internal pieces. All of this was to be accomplished deep inside the seatback structure. It would appear this eccentric was pre-assembled to the hinge/gear assembly on a bench, and then the combination was attached to the seat structure with some welds and massive rivets. Removing this combo assembly for better access wasn't going to happen unless you cut out the welds and drilled out the big rivets. I could have done the welding, but I didn't see any feasible method for the home mechanic to replace the rivets, and there was no room to replace them with bolts instead.

What I found was a (plastic?) bushing around the eccentric had disintegrated. This allowed just enough slop in the gears for the recline to work loose. I made a replacement bushing from brass, but it was very difficult to machine on the lathe. Think of a short section of thin wall pipe, kinda hard to hold while fabricating. I had to make three tries before getting the dimensions just right for reassembly. Even then I'm not sure it was correct, but it fit and seemed to work. I bet I tried over twenty times trying to get everything aligned and reassembled, working by Braille each time. The last time I was only making a test fit with the third bushing when the pieces miraculously went together. I had not even applied any grease yet, but there was NO way I was taking it apart again. I did my best to get some Teflon spray in there in lieu of grease.

If anybody else encounters this same recline problem, I would highly suggest buying a serviceable replacement seatback from eBay or a local wrecking yard. Even if you figured out an easier method for reassembly, you'd still need to fabricate a bushing somehow, and not too many guys have a lathe at their disposal.

You don't need to replace the entire seat, just the seatback. Disconnect the battery. Take off some trim and the seat pocket panel on the back side. From there, undo two electrical connectors and four bolts to replace the seatback. The two bolts on the inboard side are a little tight against the center console, so I loosened the four bolts that secure the entire seat to the floor. This let me tip the seat outboard for better access, but I didn't have to remove the seat bottom or any of its connectors.

One of the connectors you must undo is for the airbag on the outboard side of the seatback. (This is the connector with only two wires) Per the service manual, disconnect the battery first and wait at least one minute. Then you can undo the airbag connector.

 

Great job on a daunting repair Karl....just in case you ever have a fail, i have Rosie's contact info🤣😂😒

 

On my front passenger seat, there's that seat cover piece the is under the seat above the floor electronics that clips to some support under the seat cushion.

I have tried four or five different times to try to clip those clips onto the support bar underneath the seat but I can’t get my hand under far enough to grab the clip and find the place where its supposed to clip onto but I’m always just close. And it’s so aggravating. thing is still hanging down. I guess I have to Unbolt the seat to be able to do it.

but using that experience as a baseline I can see how youre repair was a nightmare