Good Afternoon folks. I need some help understanding the secret to removing the finger knobs on the seatback tilt latches on my 01 XKR without destroying anything. Why am l removing them?All the electrical and mechanical controls on both seats are working perfectly but the leather is trashed on both. They are well beyond a repair in-situ, with big bolster scuffs and cushion rips in both. I've done a bit of auto upholstery work in the past so I plan to recover them. I have new leather covers for cushions and backs coming from GAHH and I've just started to to pull things apart. What a pain. Getting the seats out of the car was no bid deal but removing the main switch panels was a nightmare. Both had been cobbled into place by the PO after the cheesy little retaining clips that anchor the rear ends of the panels had been broken off sometime in the past (another post to come on repairing them) but the bigger challenge is getting those little finger knobs off the tilt latches! At first glance it seems a no-brainer (pic att) but after a lot of careful prying where indicated...no joy! As can be seen there a small crack is already developing on the driver side and I don't want to break it by prying in the wrong way/place What am I missing? Technique? Tool? All suggestions welcome.

 

you need to pull them. they likely break -.-

 

Well, I tried carefully prying the tilt knob off the passenger side seat and despite the judicious application of heat and very gentle leverage, it broke as it came off, as predicted (by robak). However, being a bit of a contrarian by nature and suspecting it had failed due to the existing crack (see pic in earlier post) I couldn't just accept the inevitability of destructive disassembly of the second knob, so I took a look at how I might minimise the risk . After closer examination of the broken knob I discovered that they are universal, not 'handed', and the same knob is used on both seats. I also saw that they are secured by holes moulded in the knob location sleeve which engage with 'dimples' stamped into the tilt latch arms.

I also saw that there are tiny retaining ramps (circled) moulded inside the location sleeve to help prevent the knob from disengaging from the dimple in use. The ramps mean the whole location sleeve has to be very slightly distorted, or 'swollen', to allow the dimple to disengage from the hole and clear the ramp during removal. 20+ year old plastic will not easily distort sufficiently, even with heat and care, by simply trying to muscle the knob off with external pressure. I wondered, if I could slightly 'pre-swell' the sleeve slightly from inside? I saw that there was room for a thin shim or wedge to slide between the lever and the and the inside wall of the locating sleeve. Might it work? Long story short, I had some .030" strip from another project so I made a simple hook tool that I could use to pull against the little ramp inside the sleeve while I also pried gently from the outside with a forked trim tool.


....after some heat had been applied...Voila! The knob came right off with little effort and no damage.




Now I have to address the disaster that are the escutcheons...both have disintegrated at the screw fasteners!

 

Well done....

 

It's pretty easy to figure out how things are supposed to work - once you break them apart. Oh, that's how that thing comes off ! Sounds familiar.