Rear seat back latch replacement

[Rich]

(digging up an old thread)

Charles, how did you fix this?
My seat latch pin head has come off from the pin. I tried to re-screw it to the pin but couldn't because it's too close to the seat to rotate the head. It seems like I need to remove the whole latch system from the seat, so I wondered how did you remove it.

Can you hold the handle and rotate the pin?

[rwtucker]

Thinking about the high strength epoxy solution, setting a rough metal pin to rejoin and glue the two pieces of the shaft would likely get the strength you need. Can you get a suitable angle with a drill and long bit to drill a receiving hole in the broken part of the pin remaining in the shaft? If so, to allow for misalignment between the two holes, you could then drill a slightly larger hole in the free portion with the handle on it, then prepare the two halves and the pin with HS epoxy and join them in the shaft. I did something similar to this on a non-aircraft swivel cover. It worked well under about the same lifting pressure as required on our seat locking pins. The challenge was to get the drill bit aligned well enough to drill the hole in the portion of the pin inside the shaft. Not a lot of room for error.

[arksat]

Can you hold the handle and rotate the pin?

It worked!! Thank you for the advice, Rich.

[Charles]

(digging up an old thread)

Charles, how did you fix this?

Bringing back old memories! In the end, I was able to use pliers to push the pin up and lower the seat back. That allowed the pin to slide out of the mechanism. That pin is one piece that goes from the handle to the seat hole. It has a small diameter under the handle and a larger diameter where it sticks out into the lower part of the mechanism. It had ruptured in the middle where the diameter of the pin changes without any fillet, likely due to stress concentration at the sharp angle, a pretty basic design flaw.

I drilled a hole into the lower part of the pin and machined threads into it. I then took a piece of nail of the same diameter as upper part of the pin (the part on the picture) and threaded it at both ends. I screwed one end of the threaded nail into the threaded hole in the lower part of the pin. I inserted the repaired pin into the mechanism and screwed the handle on the top of the new pin. Voilà.

[Rich]

I had occasion to take a look at the back of my seat and it appears the leather is simply glued in place. So I could get access to the nuts that hold the latch mechanism by simply pulling the leather flaps loose from the seat structure. Replace the mechanism, then glue back in place with the same contact cement originally used.