Hey guys, 1972 Buick Riviera. Power seat needs to be removed. How many attachment bolts, and location? Here is the post from the other board. "The driver seat is electric. The motor tries to move, but something is stuck. The seat wont move at all. (I am getting the car running after it sat for 30 years in a garage). I want to remove the seat to free things up. I have removed 6 bolts. There are 2 attachment points holding the track to the floor under the center of the track. I have tried sliding the track forward and backward in the event they are tabs/slots rather than bolts. No luck. If there are bolts under there, their heads cannot be accessed at all. I may be able to reach them if I slid the seat forward, but I am not sure. I haven't found a way to slide the seat. I am totally stuck. I'd appreciate any ideas/experience." And another post by a second guy? " Hi all, I need to remove the driver seat to free things up/grease things. I cant get to 2 of the bolts near the rear end of the track. I'm assuming I'll need to slide the seat forward to access them. I have tried removing other bolts and disassembling the mechanism with the seat still in place, but I'm having no success. I'm stuck. Is there a release to allow the seat to slide forward if the motor doesn't work? Thanks for any ideas. Ray"
I don't know how similar the mounting on a Riviera is to the Electra but when I removed the front bench in the Electra I had to put the seat all the way forward to access the rear bolts then all the way back to get at the front bolts. Edited for bolt location confusion due to ageing grey matter! I *think* there are two bolts each side at the front and one each side at the back. With these removed the whole seat and rails simply lift off the floor. There are no central mounting bolts. The bolts live under carpet with a black plastic cover over the carpet as in this pic which shows the rear with the seat fully forward. With the seat in a normal position the blue plastic skirt on the seat completely covers the black plastic cover. Same at the front. Rear bolt cover. Front bolts
As for manually moving the seat? If the motor is running and trying but unable to move it then something in drive cable and/or gearing is jammed. I doubt you'd be able to disconnect the drive cable and make it turn. Not a lot of room to work under there either. If the hold down bolts are similar to the Electra and they have not been removed you might be able to pull back the carpet and get a wrench in there. Failing that, and as a last resort, time to get in there with a cut off wheel
Larry . When he is saying there are 2 bolts in the center of the track I think maybe he is trying to remove the seat from the tracks and leave the tracks bolted to the floor ???? There are 1 bolt at the back and 2 in the front .
Larry . Another thing you can try is to disconnect the cables that go to the tilt actuators and try to move the seat forward . Sometimes the seats get " JAMMED " in one position and if you relieve the stress on other actuators you can get the seat to move . The seat definately needs to go forward to get to those rear bolts .
Thanks guys, I linked them over here. We will see if they follow up. Keep em coming if you think of anything else.
Yeah - if the carpet is still in then it's not obvious where the bolts are. I just went out and took a picture of the front and rear. The bolts are under there! If the seat won't move then you'd probably need to tug the black plastic covers out before yanking the carpet back to get to the bolts. Front Rear
Here's the rear black plastic cover removed. Th bolt head pushes up into the hole which would make yanking the carpet difficult with it in place.
Hi all, raymilosh here. I followed the thread here from buickforums. Thanks for all the sleuthing so far... so I got all four bolts that hold the front of the 2 tracks to the floor. I got 2 of the 4 bolts that hold the rear of the 2 tracks to the floor, but the 4 bolts are not all the way in the back, they are about a third of the way up from the back. Two are inboard from the track...I was able to remove them. The other 2 are under the track. I'm about sure I'll need to slide the seat forward to access them. I have been unable to move the seat forward. I managed to remove the motor, but that didn't help. I actually kind of like the idea of slipping a sawzall blade in there and cutting the 2 bolts off. I could sort everything out pretty easily once the freaking seat is out. I am definitely surprised that buick didn't provide a manual release lever. Otherwise, as soon as there is a problem with the mortor/cables/gears, bolts would need to be cut to be able to remove it for repair? It doesn't make sense.
The driving cables are the same as Speedometer cable . They have a square end . The piece on the bottom of the seat with the motor is called a Transmission . The cables are held in to the transmission with a retainer plate that grasps the cable housing end . The retainer plate is attached to the transmission with 2 screws but you only have to remove 1 and loosen the other to remove the cable. That being said the seat MUST move forward to get to the rear track bolts . As I said in a previous post you can try removing the TILT cables from the TILT actuators . This alone will relieve stress on the Transmission and MAYBE allow the seat to move forward . Try moving the seat rearward too . I have seen the transmissions jammed into a position that doesn't allow it to move in any direction . First see if you can even make it tilt . I assume it is a 6 way power seat and that it is a BENCH seat . Correct ???
I believe it is a 6 way power seat. There are several spring loaded 2 way switches and a joy stick. It looks like a split bench seat, with the driver seat being electric and the passenger and center seat as a unit that is moved manually. I have not been able to make heads or tails of the tilt mechanism, as it appears to be toward the rear of the seat and the seat is all the way back and all the way down, making it very difficult to see/access. I have seen the retainer plates and the transmission you described by looking in from the front. The plates are brass colored. I have hesitated to further disassemble the unit, as it is very difficult to access and because I didn't want to waste any more time. I'll try to remove the plates and cables tonight. Thanks for knowing all of this and suffering through it with me so far. Here's a little history: The car has 64 k miles. the owner parked it in concrete floored dimly lit garage in 1990 after she scratched the side and decided she was too old to drive it anymore. My friend inherited the house and the car and she asked me if I could get it going for her. It started after filing the points. Remarkably, the carb, trans, power steering, brakes worked. I have changed all fluids, tuned it up, got tires, restored fuel tank, fixed or replaced horns/climate controls/fuel pump/ vac lines/many coolant leaks/mouse chewed wires/etc and cleaned it off. The paint is in reasonable condition, so I'll have it buffed out. I'm almost done with things I can find wrong. The AC will need to be converted to 134. Now that it is basically a car again, I intend to drive it for a while to see what else pops up. Honestly, I'm surprised that it held up so well after sitting for 30 years.
Alrighty then, I got it. Thanks for the help. I pulled the cables out of the actuators, but the seat still wouldn't move. I turned each actuator with a flatblade screwdriver to lift the seat for better access and then I turned the next set of actuators to slide the seat forward. Then I was able to access the last 2 bolts holding the track to the floor and remove the seat. It was definitely difficult and time consuming and frustrating, as there is very little room under there. I don't think that there is a release anywhere that would have made that job any easier. So here is how to remove the electric seat from a 72 Riviera: The seat must be slid back to access the bolts under the track in the front and it must be slid forward to access the bolts under the track in the back. To move the seat, unplug the cables from the four actuators near the front or remove the cables from the transmission by removing the Phillips head screw at either end of the hold down plates. It was necessary for me to remove the motor first to get a little room. Unplug all electrical connectors first. It is difficult. The motor is welded to a bar that is fastened to the track with two half inch nuts. Getting it out is also difficult. The cables are stiff and it was difficult to get them out. there are white plastic devices holding the cable in place in the actuators. They can be removed by squeezing them with needle nose pliers. Either turn the front two actuators with a screwdriver or turn the cables that have been pulled out of the transmission to tilt the seat back to provide more room and then turn the next set of actuators to slide the seat forward. This part was not really all that difficult. The attached picture was taken from the front. The motor has already been removed. The yellow cable attaches to the transmission on the left and to the tilt actuator on the right. The white device between the yellow cable and the actuator can be squeezed with pliers to release the locking tabs while it is being yanked out of the actuator. Once the seat is tilted back, remove the cable from the next actuator in the background and turn it to slide the seat. The reason the seat wouldn't move was that the aluminum housing of the transmission had corroded a bit, seizing the plastic axle shaft of one of the plastic gears inside. I removed the gears, polished the corroded bores and the plastic axle shafts with 800 grit sandpaper until they turned freely, greased everything and put it back together.
hmm. Next question. I found that the seat would go backwards and down but not forwards or up. It was becasu the motor spins only in one direction. I have determined that the relay under the seat works and the motor can be made to spin forwards and backwards using power and ground. There must be another relay. Rather than hunt it down, could someone point me to a wiring diagram or to where other components of this system are located? Edited: I found it. There are no relays. The wires run straight from the switch to the seat. I removed the switch on the door, determined it was working and followed the signal to find that one of the pins in the large connector under the seat had bent.
