The normal front and back movement didn’t work at all.  The height adjustment lever on the side of the seat worked, but it only did so much.  I still could hardly drive the car in that position.  Not much good owning a car if you can’t sit in it or drive it.

Even with somebody else pulling from the rear, the seat wasn’t going to move.  There isn’t a lot of room but I was able to see how the mechanism worked.   The tracks on both sides have teeth and the seat can only move when the fingers retract.  The lever is on the inner side of the seat.   It directly pushes on the mechanism on that side to move the fingers.   It is then connected to a bar further back which rotates and moves a lever on the other side that moves the fingers there.  I could see how it worked, and the fingers were moving, but it didn’t seem like enough.  It seemed to be worse on the inner side, which was odd since that side is actuated directly by the lever.

Comparing to the passengers seat, that mechanism seemed to move more.  I tried to use various screwdrivers and pry tools to make the fingers move more.  I was able to get them move more, but the seat didn’t want to budge. Since the seat wouldn’t move, I couldn’t take it out either.

I posted about my problem on the W124 facebook group.  I had a few useful replies, but more helpfully a friend from the Mercedes club saw my post and called me offering to help.  That was very much appreciated and so today I went over to him to look at the car.   He also had a spare W124 seat on the bench that we could compare to.

We spent quite a lot of time trying to make the seat move, using the other seat to compare to.   Given our lack of success, it became apparent that the seat was going to have to come out.  Since it was already quite far forward, we could get the rear bolts out pretty easily.   It took quite a lot of effort to finally get the seat to move back so we could remove the front bolts.

Once the seat was out, it was immediately apparent why it was jammed.  The metal had broken at the end of lever right near the pivot point.  That meant when you pull the lever, instead of pivoting, it was just moving away from the seat mechanism. That meant the fingers could never move enough.

Luckily, my friend was able to weld it up for me.    As soon as it was welded, immediately the mechanism was working as it should have been.  While the seat was out, we also lubricated the tracks.  With the mechanism welded, and the tracks lubricated, the seat moved really well.

Getting the seat back in was pretty straightforward, although we found it was much easier to start with the rear bolts.   With the track working and lubricated, it was quite easy to get the seat back in.   It was great to have some help for this.  I never would have been able to repair it on my own.

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