If there is a way to search the archives by topic, please let me know? I wanted to search “seats” but did not know how to do it? Feeling a bit silly.
Can anyone tell me how to remove the seats from a series 2 xke? Has to be more than just sliding them all the way forward!
I have to replace the back bulkhead hardura, because I took out the amplifier and the speakers that the previous owner had installed with an Alpine stereo. I am going to fill the gaps with sheet metal. Just need easier access to the back of the car!!!
Slide them all the way forward and tilt the seat back all the way forward. You will see a screw that appears to be a Phillips head at the end of each of the two tracks for each seat. The screws are actually posidrive, not Phillips, but if you are careful a Phillips head screwdriver can be used to remove them. Once the screws are removed wiggle the entire seat mechanism backwards toward the rear of the car. Each of the two tracks for each seat simply slide on to and are held in place on a spool like assembly that bolts to the car’s structure. Carefully lift the seat out of the car.
I’ll add - you should find a pair of spacers under the track of each mount which the screw passes through. Note them and remember them when you put it back.
To use the search function click on the magnifying glass in the upper right corner and go from there.
Jeff, here’s a photo of the rear floor pan that shows the “bobbin” attached to the floor that the front of the seat slides clip under. The 2 holes are shown at the rear of the floor pan where the 2 screws attach the rear of the floor slide to the floor. X2 what Geo stated, install spacers under the seat slide at the rear otherwise when you tighten the screws the slides will go banana shaped and you won’t be able to slide the seats. When I bought my 69FHC the spacers were not installed and the seats would not move at all. Solid. I had to undo the screws from under the car using a double nut on the exposed thread. It worked and I had to straighten the slides and now the seats mover easily.
And just to make things difficult, only one of the two tracks will be held by the ratchet, so that one will come loose but the other will remain fixed at the front until you grab it with your hand and yank it backwards. Then you’ll realise that hand is now covered in dirt grease and carpet fluff so you can’t take the seat out of the car without staining the leather and the back until your hand is wiped clean.
… and if you want to make it easier the next time (like when you drop your keys between the seat and console), replace those rear posidriv screws with 1" UNF (1/4x24) bolts. They spin out and back in really nicely using an air ratchet.
And if you don’t do this, get a Pozidriv screwdriver bit–don’t use a Phillips screwdriver or you might cam out the screw head IMO. Jaguar switched to Torx screws in the seventies, BTW. And 1/4 UNF is 28 TPI (5/16 and 3/8 are 24).
I’m starting to wonder if we Europeans should be sending you North Americans care packages. We could do a deal, imperial fasteners are hard to find and quite expensive where I am, but I can get Pozi bits from a mfr like Bosch in any place that sells tools. Heck, I can even get them in the local grocery store!
These bits seem pretty good - I have used them quite awhile. But they do lead an easy life just undoing tail lights, small socket head cap screws and such. The set includes the adaptor to fit the hex bit to a ¼" square drive.
Bits in general do not hold up to a lot of abuse - last time I built a deck I bought the Phillips bits by the box full.
I was looking at a really nice looking set of 4 posidrive screwdrivers, made in Germany. The only thing wrong with them was the price, about $60. Go in the average hardware store here and ask for something posidrive and you get the same kind of look you would get if you asked for a number 6 oscillating kronkit valve.
If it’s expensive you want, then I’m your man! Where I live, even cheap stuff is expensive.
Were they by any chance Hazet brand? That is about the same as Snap-On/Proto. Good tools, but they do cost a bit. I still have and use a set of Proto that my sister bought me for my 16th or 17th birthday.
The only problem with the 1/4" bits is when the screwhead is down inside a deep recess. About half the time I want to disassemble a piece of electrical kit which uses tamperproof screws I find I have the right bit, but it’s deep down in a bore. I have a 1/4" drive fitting which I turned down to the absolute minimum, but even that is too large. Just this afternoon I was stymied by a tamperproof Torx. I’ve got the right size tamperproof Torx as a regular screwdriver… but it’s in my other shop, which is about 30 minutes drive.
I bought my regular Pozi-driv screwdrivers from Ebay, Snap-on brand. Many of the cheap assortments of hex drive “bits” include Pozi-driv, but they are often of low quality and can break.
I actually owe my discovery of Pozi-driv to the birth of the internet, and specifically the J-L forums! In the 60s-80s I collected a few old Tektronix oscilloscopes (valve-type) which I tried to restore. I had a lot of trouble removing the “Philips” screws, particularly from my 310A which I got cheap because it had fallen into the ocean from a drilling rig. I also acquired a 71 XJ6, quite rusty and abused, whose “Philips” screws gave me much trouble. Shortly thereafter, this forum explained the meaning of the "+"markings 45 deg away from the Phillips recess. Eureka–they were found not only on the Jaguar, but on the Tek scopes. Tektronix had been using them even before Jaguar!
Look for them also in Chinese air tools, and generally if a Phillips bit doesn’t seem to fit. Not much made in the US lately, so not much Pozidriv. What’s not Phillips seems to be torx.
Amazing you folks in the US haven’t discovered Robertson yet - another great Canadian invention, like poutine. Two of us built my sister-in-law’s 14’x14’ deck with 20# of screws and two Robertson bits, both of which are still in the drill chucks and usable,.
