[T3] Fw: Type 3 Front Seats

[Jim Adney]

On 29 May 2019 at 12:02, S UNSWORTH wrote:

> Is there a recognised method of fixing Type 3 Front Seats that have
> gone very, very laid back ? Asked on our VW Type 3 & 4 Club Forum in
> the UK but no response as yet. Had our 1972 1600A Variant since March
> 1988. The Original Drivers Seat ( RHD here of course ) got very laid
> back in the early 1990s. I´ve had another Drivers Seat I got from a
> Breakers in use since then. That has now gone the same way. Looks to
> me like the problem is due to wear of the rake adjustment Cams on the
> cross shaft. Only solutions I can come up with, apart from a new seat,
> would be to stick some metal, nylon or hard rubber on the part the
> Cams sit agai?st, put some sort of a band around the Cams, or some
> bushes between the cross shaft and the holes in the Seat Base.

Are these the early or the late seats? They changed midyear in '72.

If early, the cams are zinc die castings and it might be possible to find 
someone who could weld new material onto them, but that's difficult: Zinc 
castings tend to suddenly slump into a puddle. Packing them in a support of 
plaster of paris while welding might help.  

Gary Forsmo's early front seat had a similar problem that, IIRC, got started 
when one of the cam pins fell out or sheared off, letting all the load fall on 
one cam. I may have the extra cam, or maybe Gary took it. I bought some 
SST pins in the right size if that's what you need.

I don't have as much experience with the late (mid-'72-73) front seats as with 
the early ones, but the ones I've dealt with all suffered from broken seat back 
springs. I managed to put together good ones from several broken ones. 
Looking for replacements from parts cars is always a good option, but it 
sounds like you may have come up dry on that one.

Could you take the seat apart and have replacment metal welded in to build 
up the worn areas?

If I had a better idea of which parts of yours are worn out, I might have some 
good pieces here. I saved most of the good parts that I didn't use, and RH 
front seat parts from the US would have a lot less wear.

Since you seem to have worn out 2 seats in the same way, and in ways that 
I've not seen here, I have to wonder if there's something about your use 
habits that is causing this wear. I'd like to help you fix the current problem, 
as well as prevent its future occurance. It could be as simple as adding some 
grease in a critical location, or just taking the load off certain parts while you 
make your usual seat adjustments.

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Jim Adney, jadney at vwtype3.org
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
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