The driver's seat in my 92 SC400 has some play in it. The seat cushion and seat back will rock back and forth slightly when accelerating/stopping. The bolts seem nice and tight - is there anything else that would explain this? Worn gears in the recline mechanism? Can it be repaired?

thanks,
sluggo

 

Sluggo, since the search links "time out" now i cannot do one for you, but i suggest searching for "moving seat" "seat play" or "rocking seat" and finding the many threads we have on this topic. There is some good info

 

Sounds like the bolts holding the seats to the rails is loose. Not sure about the front of the seats, but there 1 on each side just above the tracks in the back. Not talking about the ones that hold the seats to the floor.

 

no, it has to do with the drivetrain of the seat, that's why the other threads are relevant, but search links time out now and i can't link them.

 

I tried searches on "rocking", "seat", and some other obvious one, but no luck. Thanks OLT, will look some more, and will check the drive equipment. =)

sluggo

 

my seat does this too - but hasn't bothered me enough to fully investgate
feels the same as some camry seats i've repaired in the past
there's a toyota TSB for this problem & the repair works
the loose feeling is from the drive cable fitment into the seat motor
its a semi press fit where the cable goes into the motor - over time / usage
the cable becomes loose where it fits into the motor creating a sloppy feeling
the factory 'repair' consists of removing the cables from each motor & slipping
a few inch long piece of thick wall heat shrink (few layers of normal will work too)
over the cable - push the cable back into the motor & shrink it down while keeping
inward pressure where the 2 meet
the shrink will keep the connection between the cable/motor tight & no more slop
- on the camrys i had to remove the whole seat track from the seat bottom to
access the cables/motors
its really very easy - just takes time & about $5.00 for the shrink
when i get around to mine i may post up a how to w/ pic's - seams like a common problem
if you do it post up w/ some feedback
- john

 

There's no cables on the SC400 seat, all the movement is controlled by powered screw drives.

I took the seat out and basically tightened everything I found. Everything was loose, and there was a lot of it. I left the screw drive mount ends alone. I checked the seat play as I went along, and it seemed like the big change came when I cinched down the 8 bolts that hold the seat frame to the rails. The motor that controls tilt had a little end play in it as well. There's about .5mm of wear in the tilt hinge pins that's unrepairable.

If you do this, you'll need 8, 10, and 12mm sockets and a 12mm box end. You'll also need 6mm allen key for the motor mounting clamps. Good news is that even as bad as it was, it's solid now. It took about 15 minutes to get the seat out and about 15 minutes to figure out what did what. Beware of tightening the screw end mounts - if you tighten those you may find that the associated motor will not turn.

sluggo

 

hmph, mine does this too. i think i will investigate tomorrow.

its not all the time, just random, but random enough for it to bug me, lol.

 

thank you - i know exactly what set up your talking about
guess i should move my 1st reply to the es forum - their probably
the camry style i mentioned
didnt mean to give bad info
thanks agian john