I thought I'd share my repair for the inoperative lumbar support in my '99 F150. The wheel would spin, but without effect. I suppose after 240K miles and 11 years, the plastic finally gave up. (Of course, the addition of a 10¢ piece of stamped metal on assembly would have let it last virtually forever.)

I started by "un-clipping" the seat-back cover at the bottom. Flip the seat forward, and you will find that it's held together with a two-part plastic clip. I inserted a small pointed tool from the end to start the "release" of the gripper, then "un-zipped" it the rest of the way.


I was unable to get the seat cover high enough to work, so off came the arm rest:

Remove the one large Torx bolt.


There is a cable that lays in the mounting plate groove. This must be removed to get the arm rest completely off.


Here you see how it's attached (like a throttle cable).


Once the arm rest is out of the way, you can work the seat cover up far enough to work, and this is what you'll probably see: (Note the lumbar cable floating free.)


This is where the cable should be:


But, mine had fatigued over the years, and allowed the cable to pull through.


I took some measurements of the cable and end, as well as the hole spacing.


Then I found a piece of shelving bracket in one of the cabinets in the garage. (A thin, flat piece of aluminum or steel 1/2" wide would work just as well or better.)


Since the material was already slotted appropriately, all I needed to do was drill two holes, one at either end of a slot.


Then I made sure the cable was unwound completely, held my new reinforcing bracket in place on top of the plastic top piece. I flexed the lumbar support enough to get the cable into place, and voila! FIX'D!




Once installed, I tested to be sure everything worked, then pulled down the seat cover and clipped the attachment pieces back together.

I then re-installed the armrest, (Be careful to insure the plastic "cam" rides in such a way that it holds the cable in the track.


The longest part of this was waiting for the painted bracket to dry. If the bracket was made up ahead of time, and now that I've done it once, I probably could probably do it again in 30 minutes or less. Easy fix.

Andy

 

very good write up!

 

Thanks! I hope it can help someone out.

Andy

 

should be able to help at least one or two people out