hoosier58

Hi all.
I got my SC3 into a daily driver (for my daughter) back when I joined Club Lexus, then had to put any other work on it off for a while. It still had some quirks, but nothing too urgent.

The used passenger window regulator that I put in back then failed recently, so today I pulled the reg and motor out and made a temporary support out of 20" of 1" pvc pipe to keep the window closed until I buy a new reg [or maybe try the epoxy fix ---- though it didn't seem like it held long for most people].

Since I was working on that side anyway, I decided to address a power seat issue that it has had since I bought it last Christmas. The passenger seat forward/back motion would only move on the left rail, which is like not moving at all, because all the seat did/does is twist. The seat back would tilt forward to let a passenger into the back, but the right rail was frozen most of the way back, so climbing in was a real challenge (I imagine it's a bit of a challenge even when the seats work correctly). I think, correct me if I'm wrong, that seat is supposed to slide all the way forward automatically when you tilt the back forward to let someone in (my T100, with non-powered seats worked that way).

Anyway, I managed to get the seat out, though it was a royal PITA. I wish I'd searched the forum stickys first and found out about the 10mm nuts on the front of the rails. The front seat bolts were easy, but the back ones took an hour, a combination of open end and box wrenches (one with offset), cramped hands, blue language, and squeezing my head upside down between the front and rear seat.

I did search the forum stickys now, trying to learn how the seats work, and about replacing motors, but all I found was a thread about moving unpowered seats (which would have been handy earlier). I was hoping to find a DIY (maybe even with pics) showing how much the seat rails have to be taken apart to test/change motors, but no such luck.

Has anybody done this? Can you give me any tips? I'm going to bring the seat into the house and work on it this evening, so any help would be great.

{edit} I also pulled my driver seat, thinking I might learn how to get the passenger one out easier (and also thinking I could vacuum and shampoo stained carpet). I saw two motors under the driver seat, so expected to find two under this one. I brought it in the house, and there is only one motor. I expected two, one for each rail.

I can also see that there's a drive screw in each rail, but it looks like the motor has a through shaft that drives both screws. The motor is obviously good, because the seat twists. Any ideas why it would drive one screw, but not the other?

I have a couple of other questions too.
Are the seat motors specific to SC seats, or can I run to my local U-Pull and grab one from a ES or GS?

hoosier58

I'm learning some more, searching online.
A search turned up a thread here at Club Lexus from someone with a GS having the same trouble with both front seats. Somebody responded to him, with this link, saying it fixed his seats.

http://www.gamiviti.com/html/products_seatparts.html

There's also a pdf showing how to do the repair:

http://www.gamiviti.com/images/cap_g...stallation.pdf


You'll notice that it is actually for Landcruiser seats. It seems to have worked on somebody's GS though. I'm going to disassemble my SC rails and see what I find.

hoosier58

I found the fix, with pictures. I commented, and revived it.

Ali SC3 wrote this up:

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sc-...with-pics.html

I guess it's a pretty common issue, so I don't know why I couldn't find it in the STICKY. ---- maybe because I didn't use the correct search parameters, thinking it was a motor issue.

Sorry I didn't add the link last night.

megamax

iTrader: (9)

link?????????????????

Luxor

iTrader: (15)

Perhaps my thread can assist you in any way? https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sc-...eat-motor.html

Luxor

iTrader: (15)

In my case, I looked up the part number to replace one of my tilt motors and the seat motor is specific to SC300/SC400. In some cases, you can take out the armature (inner motor part) from another Lexus model and swap that out provided it's the same size and made by Denso.

hoosier58

Thanks Luxor! Beautiful write up!

It will help me too, because I'm going to have to remove the 'plastic seat cover' in step #6 in order to also remove (or modify) the lower plastic skirt thing (which you didn't have to remove).

Your picture for steps #9, 10# and#11 shows one of the plastic caps that it turns out is my issue. The bolts you circled for step #9 are right behind the white plastic cap on that side, which is on the end of the motor shaft for the forward/back motor. If I knew how to import your picture and add text and circles, I would circle it in red.

Your post and Ali's should be merged into a seat thread and be added to the STICKY.

If you follow the shaft back, through the motor, to other other side, there is another plastic cap. That's where my problem is. The cap screwed out, which let the small gear disengage from the drive screw. I found it (the cap) trapped between the lower plastic trim skirt on that side and the nut that holds the small gear in place. All I have to do is push the nut back in, then screw the cap back in (unless it turns out the gear is stripped), but the skirt is in the way. I'm thinking about using a forstner bit to drill a clean hole in the skirt to make the repair faster if I ever have to do it again.

Some SC passenger seats seem to have the tilt motor you wrote up replacing, but my 94 doesn't. If I understood Ali SC3's write up correctly, any seat with a (working) tilt ought to be much easier to replace the cap on ---- at least on the door side --- maybe without even removing the seat. If you tilt the seat front all the way up, I think you can raise the plastic skirt out of the way.