I managed to bend the hinge pivot on the seat back of a `85 4-door. [We don't discuss how this happened.] There's a somewhat thick sheet metal strip along the bottom of the seatback that holds the pivot and this strip is bent quite a ways. In trying to straighten the piece without having to dismantle everything, I'm finding the metal to be quite resistant to being bent back into position. Any thoughts?
Rear seatback hinge
Feb 17, 2007
8 Replies
You could try placing a piece of wood across the bent part of the hinge & hammering the wood to try & get it back into shape if you have enough room.
hth
kds :-).
I have the seatback out of the car so room isn't a problem. I've tried hammering and it just laughs at me. Very good steel...
Hello, maybe try the exact same method you used when bending it in the first place? ;-) At least that method worked ... *grin*
Richard.
I tried that, too. No go.
It's the old problem of having a flat metal piece secured against another object. You can bend the metal away from the object but you can't bend it back and get it back to where it started.
*nods knowingly* ... too bad. :( Maybe a long bar attached to the thing one way or another? Heating it up to glowing red will make is bendable, but you probably lose some strength in the metal in the process.
Richard.
I've already lost strength!
Heating it will probably not do good things for the upholstery and the wood backing.
If you can unscrew / unbolt it from the seat / frame, try heating it in a vice. That should sort it out (unless it's sprung steel)
I was hoping to avoid having to dismantle everything since it'll (probably) take a trip to the upholstery shop to reassemble it.
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