Removing front seats 83 W123
 

I have been wrestling with this and for the life of me I can't figure out how to remove the drivers seat in my 83 W123 240d. The Haynes book says to remove the guide rod, then unholy the front bolts, Raise the seat all the way and slide forward. Remove the rear track bolts and then lift the seat out. Well in the middle of the seat rails there is another bolt on.each side. These bolts I can not figure out how to remove. The car came with new front seats, (newer at least) and my driver seat is ripped and broken down. Any help would be appreciated.

Chuck

I have asked this question a bunch of times. I think you are asking the same question I posed, but I never got an answer -- just links to prior threads which did NOT answer the question. So, don't feel bad. I can get my seats out, but how in the world do you remove the seat from the rail part. You are absolutely correct in that you can get the 2 front screws out and the 2 back screws out, but how about the middle 2???? I ended up cutting the frames off -- this was the donor car. I have rebuilt my driver's seat, and I would love to put that into my car, but I cannot figure out a way to remove the seat from the rail / track system and I refuse to pay someone money for something that is probably a one time trick or something so simple, a caveman can do it. Except me

I just did this job.

After I got the seat out of the car I separated the back and bottom and completely disassembled the seat frame. Just remember how everything goes and you will be good to go.

Also do not forget to re-align all of the tracks before putting back into the car.. I'd like to make a DIY but I am not taking the seat out again to just take pictures. It's a pita job

I'm interested to hear about these "middle" bolts it doesn't sound like my car has them.

For the driver's seat anyway there are 4 bolts that bolt down through the seat rails into the floor pan.

For the front passenger seat it has these same 4 bolts but also one that bolts in a perpendicular direction into the sill.

My car was built late 1980 - registered 1981... so perhaps an 83 has more bits?

Any chance of a picture?

Alternatively can you see where the bolt is / should be on any of the pictures in this thread?

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/showthread.php?t=273449

Are you trying to remove the seat from the car or the seat from the track rails?

Thanks for the replies. I am trying to get them our of the car to put new ones in. Sorry for the quality of the pics , dark parking structure camaraderie phone amd a flashlight didnt make hem that great. here is a picture of the middle bolt. it is hard to see but it is a start. I can remove the front and rear, but the seat rocks back and forth on this two.middle bolts. I again apologize for the pic quality.

Chuck

Nope, the '84 outside only has four bolts.

You mean you can't unholy the bolts and your camaraderie phone won't help?

I believe you're overcomplicating it.

1) Remove your carpets to make finding things easier.
2) Find the four bolts at each corner of the seat rails. You may need to slide the seat fore and aft to do so. The FSM recommends doing this with the seat fully "UP" so you may need to use both the handle on the side and the handle in the front.
3) Find the one bolt that fastens the seat belt slide rail to the tranny tunnel.
4) Remove all five bolts.

The rails come out with the seats. You can further disassemble the rails and the seats if needed, but you do this outside the car.

Yak pretty much nailed it. I might add a tip, If you swap any parts around have both seats side by side, its easy to get screwed up as you have TWO sets of rails per seat. You need to access the screw heads through holes in the lower rails which need to be moved to the right position.(top when the seat is upside down on the workbench).

Just did this the other week. What they said ^^^^

But, it really is a good idea to move the seat to the full raised position while it's still bolted into the car (That is the handle on the side of the seat by the door). Having the seat in that position makes getting to those middle bolts easier, and it is very hard to raise/lower the seat outside of the car.

If you are stuck with the seat belt rail you can actually pull the whole seat into the foot well and it pops off the end!

See I tried that and it won't release from the middle. But I'll spend more time this weekend on it.

Middle?
 

Can you try to say "won't release from the middle" another way?

Are all the bolts you have undone (at the rear), bolted through the FLOOR (or the sill, for the passenger side mount bolt)? Not through anything above the floor?

I always remove the rear bolts first. Keeps the tracks "in phase", if you will, which makes putting them back in MUCH easier.

Jay

Sounds to me that your going after the bolts that hold the seat to the rails,Take note that the four bolts are bolted to the floor of the car,look at the floor area ,sit in the seat ,pull the seat adjuster bar #1 and move all the way forward ,repeat this step for the second SAB ,IF THE SLIDE IS STUCK YOULL NEED TO LUBE AND GET MOVEMENT OUT OF THE SEAT FOR PROPER REMOVAL .Then look for the 2 bolts for the rear rail ,they sit down in the rail bar,10mm ,repeat this step for the frt bolts , then the seat belt rod is next ,very simply , pick the seat up and slightly move forward to the steering wheel ,it comes out of that sliding glide after about one foot of movement forward.These are part of the cars safety features in the seat design.You can reintroduce the bar into the slide when installing the new seat .Easypeasey.