Automotive Carpet Replacement: Remove Driver Seat

Video Transcript

"Okay, in this segment, now we've got, pretty much, all the preliminary procedures out of the way. Safety's covered on the electrical portion. It's time to start the removal process. If you haven't already done so, I would recommend that you thoroughly vacuum the vehicle out. To when we remove the carpet, there's a good possibility of a lot of that falling back in to the vehicle itself and it's just stuff that's going to be trapped underneath your new carpet. So, if you haven't already done so, go ahead and thoroughly clean out and vacuum the carpet out the best you can. What we're going to do first, and it's kind of important to keep everything together in your mind, and have a good large work area where you can lay out the things as you're removing them. And keep all the nuts and bolts together and everything organized. We're going to be dealing with a lot of little screws, and plastic fasteners, and covers for those fasteners. And those can really make the difference on the detail of an interior whether they're in place or not, as far as overall appearance and bringing this restoration, kind of, project back to life. So, on the seat, in this particular model, is held down with four bolts. They're 12 millimeter head, about an 8 millimeter bolt, and we need to remove those four bolts. I'm going to, first move the seat all the way back to the position so I have access to the front two bolts, and I'm going to use my drill driver to remove them. I remove the front two bolts, then I release the latch and move the seat all the way forward and that gives me accessibility to the back two bolts. You could go through the back door if you have a four door car, or if it's hatchback just lean back through and remove the rear two bolts. As you can see the rear bolts are easy accessible by moving the seat all the way forward. There's two of them at the bottom, we just want to remove those. Okay, now we've got the four bolts out, this seat is a totally manual operated seat. i.e. it doesn't have electric motors to drive it forward, backward, or control the backrest or any of those features. If your vehicle is equipped with electronic options, underneath the seat you're going to find an electrical connector, and you'll have to disconnect those electrical connectors at this time. Also, if you have an electrical seat, it's going to be extremely heavy compared with a standard manual seat. So, that's what you might want to just, when you check it, don't put your total effort into it at first. Kind of play the weight out, make sure you're able to handle it. If not, get a second person, because you're kind of leaned in, it's awkward, and you don't want to damage your back. Basically, what I'm going to do from this position, just pick the seat up and slide it through the door. And I'll take it out and place it in a secure, safe area, as well as the four bolts that fastened it. So, please watch our next segment and we'll cover removing the passenger seat."