Odd issue - armrest over-rotated? 1995 60/40 bench seat

[FliesLikeABrick]

Hi all,

I picked up a '95 Ranger last year, and after finishing some engine work I am moving onto the laundry list of other fixes. The one I am least likely to figure out and most likely to break something on ....

The center armrest (bench seat, so this is also the back of the 'middle' seat) -- is over-rotated. It rotates upward from the bottom about 90 degrees and stops, with the storage lid facing mostly forward. Then you can rotate it back down that ~80 degrees or so, with the storage lid facing upside down. See pictures.

I cannot figure out how it got this way, nor how to fix it. I cannot open the storage to try and access any fasteners inside (the door hits the back of the bench), and even with significant amounts of force I cannot get it to rotate either past the stop or past the bench so that it is on the "right" side of the range of motion again.

Suggestions?

 

[Uncle Gump]

Not really a bench seat... but a 60/40 split bench.

I've owned a few of those truck seats... never seen that happen. Wait

It appears to be installed incorrectly.... backwards.

 

[FliesLikeABrick]

Fixed. This was my 5th or 6th time trying to fix it, but I always stopped myself short of getting too carried away with brute force.

Here's what I did, in the unlikely case someone else needs to solve the case of the upside-down center armrest in a 60/40 2nd generation ranger:

1. I put a thin piece of sheet metal on the seat, extended under the armrest
2. Using mild force, and later escalating to a medium prybar - I rotated it upward until the door of the armrest could open forward. Previously it was obstructed by the seat and couldn't open at all
3. Now I was able to remove the little cover inside, and take out the large torx screw that acts as a hinge
4. Protruding from the driver's seat is a cylinder that normally acts as a stop that sets the angle that the armrest sits at when it is folded down. There is a set screw, to allow for fine adjustment of that angle. My set screw was mangled a bit, and removing it left the threads chewed up so I ran a tap through the threaded hole (M5), before reinstalling the set screw
5. Reattached the armrest, in the proper orientation. The original torx bolt was in fine condition, as was the preload spring/spacer bit that goes under it.