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Canoe
New Member
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2010
- Messages
- 2
- City
- Los Angeles
- Vehicle Year
- 2007
- Engine
- 2.3 (4 Cylinder)
- Transmission
- Manual
How to make Passenger seat recline fully
I’m lazy. And I can’t sleep under my desk at work.
I’ve tried to sleep in my pick-up, but it’s not too comfortable because the seats don’t lean all the way back. I can’t have that. I gotta take a nap.
So I figured out how to make the Ranger passenger seat fully recline.
There is probably an easier way to do this, but I could not find any forums with any information on this topic, so I just went about it the only way I could figure. Here goes:
(You could probably do this whole operation inside the cab without removing the seat back as I describe below, it would just require some more prep work (cover protection) and the ability to contort your body inside the cab.) Anyway….
If you really don’t like the way this turned out, you can just put a 3/16” bolt through that hole where the rivets used to be, and you are back to square one.
If somebody else wanted to do the driver’s side, knock yourself out. It seemed a little more complicated with the split bench center console thing in the way.
So that’s it from me, happy napping!
I’m lazy. And I can’t sleep under my desk at work.
I’ve tried to sleep in my pick-up, but it’s not too comfortable because the seats don’t lean all the way back. I can’t have that. I gotta take a nap.
So I figured out how to make the Ranger passenger seat fully recline.
There is probably an easier way to do this, but I could not find any forums with any information on this topic, so I just went about it the only way I could figure. Here goes:
(You could probably do this whole operation inside the cab without removing the seat back as I describe below, it would just require some more prep work (cover protection) and the ability to contort your body inside the cab.) Anyway….
1. Remove the tilt lever handle.
2. Remove the plastic “beauty cover”, two screws, slide it forward about a half inch then pull it toward you. Put the tilt lever handle back on.
3. On this right side of the passenger seat, take out that plastic screw thingy that holds the two flaps of seat fabric and fold them out of the way.
4. On the left side of the passenger seat, peel the seat fabric up (held on by Velcro) over the seat belt latch exposing the mechanism.
5. Remove the rivet that acts as a stopper preventing the seat from tilting back
7. At this point, you will discover that removing those rivets didn’t help much. The toothed gear portion of the seat is banging against that metal fold over flap cover. That flap cover needs to be removed.
8. This is where you could continue working inside the car, but I chose to unbolt the seat back and perform the next few steps of the operation in my garage.
9. First, you need to wiggle out the cable with the ball end of it out of the “cage”, on both sides of the seat. Then pop that cable holder out of the bracket, so the plastic covered cable end is completely free. Do this on both sides.
10. On the left side of the passenger seat, you will need to unbolt the seat belt latch mechanism with a ½’ wrench.
11. Next unbolt the two black ½” bolts holding the seat back to the seat bottom, both sides. You should be able to wiggle the entire seat back out of the cab and to a location easier to work.
12. For this next operation, I bought a Dremel tool and used the metal cut off wheel to slice off that metal fold over flap cover, both sides. I had to wrestle that circular spring to get the flap exposed enough to cut it cleanly.
13. Victory. You can see the toothed gear portion sticking up past where the metal fold over flap cover used to be. I used a little sander attachment to smooth over the cut metal.
14. Set the seat back to what would be its leaning fully forward position on both sides of the seat back, and get ready to bolt it back in the car.
15. Just set the seat back into place, loosely set the four bolts, re-attach the cable with the ball back into its cage, and the cable back into its bracket. I found it easier to start with the inside cable first, as it is looser and easier to manipulate in this tight space.
16. Tighten the four bolts that connect the seat back to the seat bottom. On the left side, pull the fabric back over the seat belt latch, re-attach the seat belt latch with the 1/2” nut.
17. On the right side, flip those flaps of fabric back over and re-attach with that plastic screw thingy.
18. At this point, you can test your work! You will notice a couple of things.
That toothed gear thing does press against the fabric and plastic cover, but not to the point where it can tear or break it. This was good enough for me. 2. Remove the plastic “beauty cover”, two screws, slide it forward about a half inch then pull it toward you. Put the tilt lever handle back on.
3. On this right side of the passenger seat, take out that plastic screw thingy that holds the two flaps of seat fabric and fold them out of the way.
4. On the left side of the passenger seat, peel the seat fabric up (held on by Velcro) over the seat belt latch exposing the mechanism.
5. Remove the rivet that acts as a stopper preventing the seat from tilting back
a. I used a 3/16” drill and drilled a hole right through the middle of it.
b. Then I mangled the in side with pliers and broke off the flange.
c. Basically I just mangled both inside and outside flanges until I could fish out the center part of the rivet, which is larger than the hole and cannot just be pulled through. The outer flanges have to be sheared off and the center piece removed. Getting those flanges off might be done easier with a Dremel cut off wheel or other method, but I didn’t have one yet and couldn’t think of another way than the drill and pliers. It worked though.
6. Remove the rivet on the left side of the passenger seat.b. Then I mangled the in side with pliers and broke off the flange.
c. Basically I just mangled both inside and outside flanges until I could fish out the center part of the rivet, which is larger than the hole and cannot just be pulled through. The outer flanges have to be sheared off and the center piece removed. Getting those flanges off might be done easier with a Dremel cut off wheel or other method, but I didn’t have one yet and couldn’t think of another way than the drill and pliers. It worked though.
7. At this point, you will discover that removing those rivets didn’t help much. The toothed gear portion of the seat is banging against that metal fold over flap cover. That flap cover needs to be removed.
8. This is where you could continue working inside the car, but I chose to unbolt the seat back and perform the next few steps of the operation in my garage.
9. First, you need to wiggle out the cable with the ball end of it out of the “cage”, on both sides of the seat. Then pop that cable holder out of the bracket, so the plastic covered cable end is completely free. Do this on both sides.
10. On the left side of the passenger seat, you will need to unbolt the seat belt latch mechanism with a ½’ wrench.
11. Next unbolt the two black ½” bolts holding the seat back to the seat bottom, both sides. You should be able to wiggle the entire seat back out of the cab and to a location easier to work.
12. For this next operation, I bought a Dremel tool and used the metal cut off wheel to slice off that metal fold over flap cover, both sides. I had to wrestle that circular spring to get the flap exposed enough to cut it cleanly.
13. Victory. You can see the toothed gear portion sticking up past where the metal fold over flap cover used to be. I used a little sander attachment to smooth over the cut metal.
14. Set the seat back to what would be its leaning fully forward position on both sides of the seat back, and get ready to bolt it back in the car.
15. Just set the seat back into place, loosely set the four bolts, re-attach the cable with the ball back into its cage, and the cable back into its bracket. I found it easier to start with the inside cable first, as it is looser and easier to manipulate in this tight space.
16. Tighten the four bolts that connect the seat back to the seat bottom. On the left side, pull the fabric back over the seat belt latch, re-attach the seat belt latch with the 1/2” nut.
17. On the right side, flip those flaps of fabric back over and re-attach with that plastic screw thingy.
18. At this point, you can test your work! You will notice a couple of things.
a. That toothed gear thing does now pop up past where the metal fold over flap used to be, and pulls on the fabric. I vote “who cares” and proceeded.
b. The seat back will now tilt back completely flat with your weight on it. It will not stay in the flat position unless you notch another "tooth" in the gear, and quite frankly, that is too big of an operation for me. I’m getting ready for a nap already.
19. Re-attach the plastic “beauty cover” thing, and re-attach the tilt lever handle.
b. The seat back will now tilt back completely flat with your weight on it. It will not stay in the flat position unless you notch another "tooth" in the gear, and quite frankly, that is too big of an operation for me. I’m getting ready for a nap already.
If you really don’t like the way this turned out, you can just put a 3/16” bolt through that hole where the rivets used to be, and you are back to square one.
If somebody else wanted to do the driver’s side, knock yourself out. It seemed a little more complicated with the split bench center console thing in the way.
So that’s it from me, happy napping!
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