George B
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The adjustment gears for the rear portion of my drivers side lower cushion stripped on my 13 Suburban so I ordered the Gruven parts kit for it and finally got around to doing the job. There are plenty of videos out there so I won’t reinvent the wheel here but I thought I would share my experience. I didn’t have time to tie the truck up for the time needed for the epoxy to cure so I ground the rivet off the adjuster, tied the gearbox out of the way and reinstalled the seat. I took the adjuster in the house and epoxied the new gear on.
Tip 1.
Don’t loose the little thrust button that will fall out when you split the gearbox open. You will need a magnet on a stick to retrieve it.
Tip 2.
Try to get the gear square on the shaft. Mine was out of alignment and caused me some wobble. It would not work with the wobble so I had to hold the assembly with two split collars and true the gear to the drive screw.
I lubed everything up and put it back together again. I used a barrel bolt and a few washers to reattached the drive screw to the lever. I noted that I bent the lever when I punched the rivet out so I needed to bend it back a bit.
Once reinstalled the motor had a difficult time moving that adjuster. It would draw too much current and stop. I tried several times with no load and it eventually started making a groaning noise as well. I remembered someone in a youtube comment saying they ended up using the plastic worm gear because the gear mesh was not correct with the brass one.
I pulled the seat AGAIN and opened the gearbox up AGAIN. I could see how the gears would not mesh well and how they could bind. I took a chance and installed the original plastic worm gear. That worked much better! After a few up and down cycles the adjuster works much better but still doesn’t like to work real well with my 230 lbs in the seat. I think more cycles will improve the gear mesh. In all it was a success since I can now set the truck up for my wife to drive and save the setting. Now the seat moves up as expected and she can use the truck too. I advised her to let the seat adjust before getting in.
Here are some pics of the process.
Tip 1.
Don’t loose the little thrust button that will fall out when you split the gearbox open. You will need a magnet on a stick to retrieve it.
Tip 2.
Try to get the gear square on the shaft. Mine was out of alignment and caused me some wobble. It would not work with the wobble so I had to hold the assembly with two split collars and true the gear to the drive screw.
I lubed everything up and put it back together again. I used a barrel bolt and a few washers to reattached the drive screw to the lever. I noted that I bent the lever when I punched the rivet out so I needed to bend it back a bit.
Once reinstalled the motor had a difficult time moving that adjuster. It would draw too much current and stop. I tried several times with no load and it eventually started making a groaning noise as well. I remembered someone in a youtube comment saying they ended up using the plastic worm gear because the gear mesh was not correct with the brass one.
I pulled the seat AGAIN and opened the gearbox up AGAIN. I could see how the gears would not mesh well and how they could bind. I took a chance and installed the original plastic worm gear. That worked much better! After a few up and down cycles the adjuster works much better but still doesn’t like to work real well with my 230 lbs in the seat. I think more cycles will improve the gear mesh. In all it was a success since I can now set the truck up for my wife to drive and save the setting. Now the seat moves up as expected and she can use the truck too. I advised her to let the seat adjust before getting in.
Here are some pics of the process.
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