So the part of my power seat that lifts and lowers the front of the seat base broke yesterday. I looked at it this morning and called Dave at Oneal to see if new parts were cheap and available. Dave, took time out of a very busy morning to try and help me out. Thanks Dave for trying. As usual, Dave gave it his all. Unfortunately Chrysler in their infinite wisdom does not sell the broken part by itself. You have to buy the whole seat movement with motors and rails an all. I was not willing to buy the whole nine yards for a piece of broken pipe. Following is how I rigged it up. I believe my back yard engineering should last for a while to come.
Enough about why, here is how I fixed it.
First to see what's wrong.
The piece of tube above and the spacer should go in the hole in the picture below and be one piece all the way across the front of the seat.
The picture below shows it in place.
Since this is tubing and not solid bar, and I probably exceed the designed weight rating of the seat, it snapped where it was welded to the lifting clevis. I measured the tubing and it measured 0.462 inch inside diameter by about 16 inches long. I was going to ask a customer to machine me a piece of rod and then thread it on the ends, but decided to just go buy some threaded rod instead. I went to Tractor Supply Company and got a piece of 7/16 threaded rod, two flat washers, and two 7/16-14 nuts. They only had a 36 inch length or rod available so I just cut it down to 17.5 inches long, and have enough left over to do it again should I need to. BTW, I could have made it 17 inches even, but I measured quickly and I was close enough. Here is the rod ready to go in.
Before I put the rod in I had to align the jagged edges of the broken tube. Once I got that done (hardest part of the whole thing) I slide the rod through the tube, put a washer on either side of it then applied a little blue loctite on the threads, and installed the nuts. I tighten the nuts fairly snug to "preload" the tube so that it will stay put. Here is the finished product shown from each end.
Drivers side of drivers seat.
Passenger side of drivers seat.