SAAB c900 Front Seat Removal

Jag behöver en livstid leverans av klassiska Saab 900s.

If the Bing Translator is accurate, that is my admission (in Swedish) that I need a lifetime supply of classic Saab 900s, aka the "c900."  If you need further proof, in this very post I will write about some work I'm undertaking on the car I bought a few weeks ago.  My old one has been wearing out (i.e. rust) so I found another one, incredibly rust-free.

Resistance is futile.  

At any rate, the 'new' car is a convertible.  And it's cursed with it has the dreaded power front seats.  For the US market, the convertibles and the SPG models had power seats standard.  I suspect they were an option in the European markets.

Both of my seats have the same issues:  the bottom seat cushions are flat as trampolines and both seatbacks are twisted due to the power cable housing(s) breaking.

Here's a shot of the passenger side seat.  The "U" or "D" shaped pattern in the seat bottom should sit about an inch or so below the outside bolsters of the seat.  There's a steel rod sewn into the seam, with springs connecting to the rod, and pulling it down to the seat frame.

However, over time, the threads or material rots and gives way, hence the trampoline look you see here.

It's harder to tell, but the left side of the seatback is twisted back further than the right.   You can see the ripple in the leather due to this.  But the main issue is that the seatbacks won't recline properly, and you don't sit straight forward with them twisted.  

The driver's side is angled about 20 degrees to the left - I took me a few days to figure out why something just didn't feel quite right about the seats.  (I've been driving 900s since 1985, so my body has a fairly acute awareness of something being amiss).

So let's get the passenger side seat out and fix it, shall we?

Removing the seats is straightforward.  There are 4 Torx bolts holding the bottom of the seat frame to the car.  

This one is on the front left of the passenger seat.  The bolts are T-45s.  I read somewhere on the internet that they were T-40s.  A T-40 may fit, but these were definitely T-45s.

You'll need leverage to get the bolts freed up.  Since these puppies hold the seats in place, they have a fair amount of torque on them.  

I wound up using the long breaker bar on the right - the ratchet didn't work.  This particular bar is a 1/2 inch drive - I use it for wheel lugs and changing the blade on my lawn mower also.  A very handy thing to have around.

Here we're removing one of the rear bolts.  You can access them by moving the seat forward.

As I say, an easy job with the correct tools at hand.

Once I had the bolts removed, and the seat was freed up, I tilted it forward to get at the electical connectors.  There are two larger ones for the seat motor wiring, and a smaller one similar to a 3.5mm audio connector (!) which is for the seat heaters I think.  Not sure.  I just disconnected all of them.

The Torx socket is pointing to one of the tabs on the sides of a connector.  Pull the tabs outward, and the connector slides apart.

Oh gee.  I took a picture of me prying one apart.

I find that these kinds of things are obvious once you have them apart, but sometimes when they're old and a bit dirty, it's hard to tell how it comes apart.

At least for me anyway.

The seat just lifts out after unbolting and disconnecting everything.

Boy, that looks sad.  I am dying to clean it up.
  

After you have the seat out, you find all the detritus from the previous owner residing under the seats.

You can also the the HVAC vents that run under the seats.  And the way someone on the assembly line cut holes in the carpet so the seat bolts could run down to the floor pan.  

I love little things like this on older cars where a human clearly did the work, and not a machine.