Below is an addition to a great helper article by bob dietz on
1/2/2005 regarding thevolvo 850 front seat. It works great! The original is the top article and mine is the bottom part
just explaining the intricacies of the damn right side! Check Bay13 for pix.
An alternative is to heat the ferrule with a butane lighter and pull it off the cable housing. Snip the housing back about 3/8". Use a 6mm deep socket to drive the ferrule back on the cable housing. The square drive should now protrude from the end of the ferrule. Slide the ferrule back into the gear drive, swing the latch plate back over the ferrule and test. It should work as good or better than new. The plastic housing stretches over time, especially if larger bodied people use the seat. The cable routing is quite close to the upholstery padding and gets stretched through normal use.
Bob Thanks immensely! I just bought my 3rd volvo-a 1994 850 turbo, with both front seats leaning back
and stuck! I used your instructions and it worked perfectly. The passenger seat was a little
harder since the screws on the gearbox were facing outside to the right, flush to the plastic liner
inside the leather. I removed the 10mm bolt from the gearbox, by cutting a square, small hole in
the plastic liner under the leather and inserting a socket. Once the bolt (and the spring
connecting to the yellow foam rubber back plate on the seat) were moved I slid the gearbox mechanism
to the left along the square driveshaft connecting both sides of the seat placement gears and
removed the phillips screws, pulled off the cover (after removing clamp on driveshaft), removed the
cable, cigarette-lightered it off, cut 7/16 off, reheated and replaced ferrule. Then it slipped
back inside the gearbox and I tested by applying griplock pliers to the top end near the ferrule
end, slide gearbox back to the far right, replaced (temporarily) the
10mm bolt and turned on switch!All worked so I moved box back to left, applied screws, replaced gearbox to the 10mm bolt on the
right using standoff and made certain the driveshaft was even on both sides. The shaft will move to
ALMOST completely out to the right but is stopped from coming out by an indentation in the end. I
reinserted the shaft into the square slot on the left rear side by jiggling switch a bit to get a
tight fit and then used a few taps from a hammer/chisel on the right side to secure the shaft. Then
I put the retaining ring back on the left side of the gearbox/shaft, pulled the seatback back down
and secured underneath by plastic ties. Do be careful! When doing the driver seat I pulled the
inside gear cable too far out of the rubber cable and had a little time getting it back into the
motor from which I pulled it. I moved both seats back as far as they would go and then forward, to
original seating position, by "nudging" switch on seat side a bit at a time until they came to the
12 o'clock position. Took about 1.5 hours but could redo in 40 minutes. Total cost: $1.00 forcigarette lighter. Hope it works for you as good as for me. snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com...