Driver Seat - Replacing Seat Pad Spring

The driver seat is normally the most seated seat in a car, so it is more likely to be worn out or broken down first rather than other seats, so no exception to mine. The driver seat pad is not providing normal support since I purchased my MB. The problem seems to be a broken seat pad spring. Without confirming the problem, I went purchase an used driver seat that still has a normal supporting from a junk yard a while back. And did the fix recently.

Special tools required:

- Universal joint for your socket wrench (see Part 2). 

- A 27mm socket if you need to detach the arm rest from the back pad.

Part 1: 

Play with the junk yard seat to get an idea of how to disassemble/reassemble seat parts. It can be divided into 3 major portions - Back pad, Butt pad and Base rack.

Below is a picture with three portions separated already, 

and even the butt pad cover is removed.

Butt pad cover - I tried to practice how to take it off the pad.
Easy. Great design.

The base rack - With the electric motors that move butt pad back and forth.

Note: If the electric and control cable of the motor is not accessible,

take the motor rolling cable and use an electric driller as a motor to manipulate.

Part 2: 

Start to remove the driver seat out of my MB. 

The 2 rear bolts (10mm) require a universal joint to reach.

Remove 4 bolts and wiggle off power and control cable, and it's out.

Note: It is a little bit tricky to detach butt pad from base rack. You need to adjust the pad position on the rack in order to reach 6 screws (3 on each side) that connect rack and the pad, but been disconnected to the car electricity, the seat pad position is unable to be adjusted. So my way to do it (not sure how the professional will do) is to detach the back pad portion from the butt pad and base rack first so the remaining butt pad with base rack is lighter, smaller and easier to work on. Then connected it back with electric control cable in the car and adjust butt pad position for losing the 6 screws.

Ha! See that broken spring?

After replacing the pad spring with the junk yard seat,

I did another trick to increase the supporting strength

by inserting a towel to the left side spring.
Left is more constantly pushed than the right side
when people getting in and out of the car.
(Our driver side is on the left) 

Put them all back in a reverse order and finished!

Part 3:

Fixing the broken pad spring.

Why not just throw it away? No, this is my favorite part! :-)

Below you can find how I used some steel wires

 to fix and reinforce the broken parts of the pad spring. 

Yes, it's working!

 I might use it to build myself a computer seat!

How cool is that, a Mercedes 300SEL computer seat!

Stay tuned!