Lame Xantia Electric Seat - Ideas Welcome

[Edhertz]

After moving the driver’s electric seat forward and hearing an uncomfortable breaking sound I am left with a seat that only moves forward and backwards on the door side.
Groping around under the seat I came away with a broken white square drive plastic coupler, a short length of 6mm square steel and a spring. Transmission from the position motor to the driven ends is by means of 6mm square steel shafts with intermediate inline plastic couplers. Removing the seat was the logical next step but getting access to the two holding down screws rear inside is proving a problem. By means of inserting the short 6mm drive shaft in the driven end and a 6mm OE spanner I can get the seat to move but not forward to gain access to the holding down screws. In conclusion I can only presume the white plastic couplers they are designed to fail in the event of an obstruction but I cannot find the obstruction. I cannot get the seat to move forward on the inside to remove the rear screws but can remove the rest and I’m reluctant to force the seat forward. Hope this little lot makes some sort of sense and any advice on how to move forward will be gratefully received as usual

[mickthemaverick]

If you confirm the year, model, engine, gearbox and RPO number from the tyre pressure sticker I may be able to find some info on the seat,

[RichardW]

I had similar trouble on a C4 Picasso seat (manual with a pencil jammed in the runner) - I was able (just, it wasn't easy!) to split the seat from the lower runners which then allowed access to fix the problem. No idea whether you can do this on a Xantia seat....

[davoxx]

They get brittle with age. I got a metal tube from ebay, just bigger than the square bar, and made a metal replacement, it worked no problems for 2 years until the car was written off.

[Stickyfinger]

There "looks" to be a way of separating the seat frame from the electric base/runners.....but I am not sure....

Maybe remove the passenger seat and study that to see if there is a way of gaining access from above ?

[Edhertz]

Yes I did just as you suggested. I unbolted the passenger seat and had a good look at the drive setup. I wasn't that much wiser though regarding access to the runner track from the side or above.

[Stickyfinger]

It is a problem for sure....being a 1999 Xantia Exclusive s.2 car I am going to assume full leather seats with seat AirBags...

You have to find the obstruction some how..........
Is the seat evenly forward on both runners/not "stuck" by "twisting" ?
Have you tried "tapping" the ends of the runners with a large lump hammer to move it back a bit to free/find the obstruction ?

Problem,
NONE in scrap yards, --- I suspect France will be the only option for parts

there are large oblong washers under the heads of the set screws on the runners, --- forcing it will distort both the runners & damage the floor before it breaks free from the rummers

the captive nuts are inside the double thickness floor. ---- will require fixing/welding for safe use after if forced, no access from above to grind / to gain access the "easy way" is to cut the box section open from under the car & drill/ grind off the captive nuts and re-weld to close the box section

[RichardW]

From the exploded diagram, the seat part certainly appears to be bolted to the runner part, looks like 4 bolts, fitted from underneath. The outer 2 are probably not too bad once the plastic edge trim is removed. The inner 2 look harder - depending on access from front / rear it may be necessary to remove the other seat and centre console to get at them.

Sounds preferable to at least explore before cutting holes in the floor!!

[Edhertz]

Appreciate your replies folks. I'll remove the passenger seat again to have another look to see where these seat holding down bolts are ..... fingers crossed could be the way to go.

[Edhertz]

Bingo! Upper seat bolts were impossible to get to so ended up turning to my power hacksaw. Fortunately there was just enough room to get the blade in so it took a while to cut through the bolts. The rubber mounts and spacers beneath the bolts were found to be in reasonable condition so was able to use again. Because of my policy of not throwing anything away (drives wife mad) I was able to find some pipe just right for sleeving the araldited plastic coupler. All it needed was a light skim on the lathe for a nice snug fit. The coupler and inline spring were reassembled in the mechanism after lining up both sliding rails. The obstruction was found to be a penny coin which somehow got itself up into the rail and was well out of sight ……not a job I’m in any rush to do again. I’ve included a view of the culprit and a couple of views of the seat drive mechanism for reader’s interest. Works fine, all good and thanks again folks for your advice and interest, Regards Alan

General underside view

Spring detail (a little patience required here!)

Final drive detail + the horror