Seat recliner

Paul77

New Member
The seat on my 1974 Rover p6b reclines back iff i put much pressure on it how can i adjust it so it stays in position . many thanks .
 
With apologies if I'm stating the obvious, and not wishing to sound patronising, each front seat has a black lever next to the transmission tunnel that can be pulled backwards/upwards to adjust the seat back position, and pushed downwards/forwards to lock the seat back in position.
 
With apologies if I'm stating the obvious, and not wishing to sound patronising, each front seat has a black lever next to the transmission tunnel that can be pulled backwards/upwards to adjust the seat back position, and pushed downwards/forwards to lock the seat back in position.
Yes i know that .... as i stated it reclines iff i put pressure on it .
 
Sorry Paul, I misunderstood your post, thinking you meant that when you leant hard against the seat back it moved. Somebody sensible will be along soon to provide actual useful help. I'll get my coat...
 
Sorry Paul, I misunderstood your post, thinking you meant that when you leant hard against the seat back it moved. Somebody sensible will be along soon to provide actual useful help. I'll get my coat...
No probs i recall Ed China doing a P5b seat on tv and thinking the P6b would be similar i'm really looking for tips on how to do it to make the job easier .
Thanks mrtask for your reply .
 
I've taken a few apart to adjust them so with luck will be able to remember what to advise you...

In essence the back rest doesn't "lock" like the sear runner into a rack, instead the black lever turns against the thread on a tube that runs through the bottom of the seat. By pushing the lever down, the tube is in effect shortened by dint of being screwed into the handle, which reduces the difference in length between the tube and another rod running inside the tube, which closes up the clearance on a clamp on the other side. This clamps the backrest solid in a clutch-like fashion. Separately there is a torsion bar which exists purely to spring the backrest to the fully forward position. There is no need to disturb this. The back rest is designed to 'give' in the event of a rear end impact (for whatever safety benefit they felt that offered!) so will never be 100% solid. Basically, your clamp has gone slack and just needs the rod screwing up by a flat or two.

You will need to remove the seat from the car first, and then remove the polished stainless steel panel at the bottom of the seat back on the lever side. Once it is off, lift the lever and push the seat back fully forwards to release the tension on the torsion bar. Then remove the retaining nut (red circle) and turn the blue rod that runs inside the tube (blue circle). There is a slot in the end for a large screwdriver. Can't remember which way to turn it (and it may differ between driver and passenger seat). But basically twist it a bit, push the lever back down and see if the seat back is more solidly clamped or not.

I put my seats back on the opposite sides of the car so the lever is on the 'outside'. This means you can adjust them in situ, but also makes better sense to me as the lever seems to crowd out the centre console area next to the seat belt buckle. I find it more natural having the levers on the outside.

Good luck!
 

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I've taken a few apart to adjust them so with luck will be able to remember what to advise you...

In essence the back rest doesn't "lock" like the sear runner into a rack, instead the black lever turns against the thread on a tube that runs through the bottom of the seat. By pushing the lever down, the tube is in effect shortened by dint of being screwed into the handle, which reduces the difference in length between the tube and another rod running inside the tube, which closes up the clearance on a clamp on the other side. This clamps the backrest solid in a clutch-like fashion. Separately there is a torsion bar which exists purely to spring the backrest to the fully forward position. There is no need to disturb this. The back rest is designed to 'give' in the event of a rear end impact (for whatever safety benefit they felt that offered!) so will never be 100% solid. Basically, your clamp has gone slack and just needs the rod screwing up by a flat or two.

You will need to remove the seat from the car first, and then remove the polished stainless steel panel at the bottom of the seat back on the lever side. Once it is off, lift the lever and push the seat back fully forwards to release the tension on the torsion bar. Then remove the retaining nut (red circle) and turn the blue rod that runs inside the tube (blue circle). There is a slot in the end for a large screwdriver. Can't remember which way to turn it (and it may differ between driver and passenger seat). But basically twist it a bit, push the lever back down and see if the seat back is more solidly clamped or not.

I put my seats back on the opposite sides of the car so the lever is on the 'outside'. This means you can adjust them in situ, but also makes better sense to me as the lever seems to crowd out the centre console area next to the seat belt buckle. I find it more natural having the levers on the outside.

Good luck!
Many thanks for your reply it's very helpful being disabled from a RTA i get around using crutches so everything i do is twice as difficult so the easy and quicker way of doing things works well for me .
Many thanks again for your help
Much appreciated .
 
Glad it was useful. One small detail i forgot to mention, if you do want to put the seats on the opposite sides of the car, you need to swap the seat backs over. They are 'handed' and can only go back on their normal sides. You'll find a cut out on the side to go around the inertia seat belt (unless it's a very early car). So you'd have to swap right base onto left back and vice versa, which is quite an involved process.
 
I had to do both my seats due them not holding position. There are pics in my thread here...P6B S Project Car . The manual is pretty good, but it takes some careful reading and looking at the parts to understand how things work, and what needs doing to fix a problem. Some parts of the work I found difficult single handed, so I suggest you have a sidekick available, and a low table or platform to work at.
Maybe if we knew where you are Paul, somebody in the area might be able to help?
 
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I had to do both my seats due them not holding position. There are pics in my thread here...P6B S Project Car . The manual is pretty good, but it takes some careful reading and looking at the parts to understand how things work, and what needs doing to fix a problem. Some parts of the work I found difficult single handed, so I suggest you have a sidekick available, and a low table or platform to work at.
Maybe if we knew where you are Paul, somebody in the area might be able to help?

Hi, If you pass the cursor over his name or avatar it tells you he's in Bedworth, North of Coventry.

Colin
 
I had my front seats re-trimmed but the company who did the work couldn't work out how the locking mechanism worked so just threw them back together.

Sparky's winter/spring/summer/autumn work

The factory workshop manual does explain it very well, so I just took it completely apart, cleaned all of the bits and then followed the manual to re-assemble. I realise this may be more difficult for you, but I can scan the pages explaining the process if you can get some help with it.
 
Being in Oz, a location in UK is not relevant to me -too far to help. A soft copy of the manual should help.
 

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Another memory jolt - one hard part to get your head around can be the setting of the hex 'nut' with 3 extra threaded holes in it. You may need to try doing this a couple of times to ensure that the seat back does lock completely when the lever is pushed down....took me a few goes on one seat.
 
Hi , got a friend of mine to take the seat out as i could'nt and it was easy enough to undo the locking screw in the nut then turn it clockwise to the next position then put the locking screw back in and job done . Many thanks for the diagram and all of your comments on the matter.
 
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