Does anyone know of a way to tighten the seats (BOTTOM & TOP) in a 1984 RX7. There not tight like they once were. Is there any easy access to bolts or something similar that can be tightened down?

Any help appreciated

 

Let me see if I understand what you're saying. The seats are loose? Like not bolted down properly? The bolts are fairly easy to find, look just forward of the seat (with it all the way back) and there should be a carpet flap velcro'd down. Lift that, there is one of the bolts. Look on the corresponding side, and tighten. Then move the seat fully forward, and move the back of the seat so the headrest faces towards the nose. Look down, and the innermost bolt should also have a carpet cover, also velcro'd.

 

Take the seats out (4 bolts to the floor) and tighten the rails to the underside of the seats as well.

 

There's a few places that first-gen seats can "loosen up" with time, and only some are easily corrected.

As mentioned above, the rail-to-floorpan bolts can get loose. Easily tightened down.

Also mentioned above, the seat-to-rail bolts can get loose. Little more work to get to, as you have to pul lthe seats to reach them properly, but stil not bad.

In addition, the large hex screws that hold the seat back hinge which connects the seat part to the back part can get loose. This shows up as the back part being loose, but the seat is OK. You need a fairly large metric Allen wrench to tighten these up, but they are right on the outside.

On the "inside" (transmssion side) the seat back pivots on a steel pin that goes thru a hole in the seat back bracket. There is a nylon grommet that the pin goes thru, and this grommet can wear away with time. This is a bit harder to tighten up, as the grommets aren't readily available, but you can find teflon tubing of the right size and replace the grommet with a little fiddling.

The final wear point is in the rails themselves; the formed steel channels that wrap around the rails & hold the seat in place can wear with time and use, especially if they were never lubricated or allowed to get wet and rust. The ball bearing races between the rail parts can also wear away & allow too much play.

There's not a lot you can do about this, outside of scrounging up a newer set of rails, unless you have access to some heavy-duty forming tools or a large press, and can carefully tweak the wrap-around channels tighter to offset the wear (they are thick steel, & the part you're trying to squeeze is narrow). Crush too much, though, and the rail wont move any more. You might be able to accomplish this with a hand sledge, but it would be real hard to control the force well enough.

 

Great! I'll check out all your comments!


Thanks guys...
David