I spent this morning with a buddy of mine at www.tuxedoparkracing.com fixing my 03 Enthusiast.

Sometime early last year we had a seat bolt fail, driver's side rear. We had to provide a quick fix and rigged together a drywall anchor to try to get the seat to stay in place, we were out of town with limited tools and only a home depot for parts. That rigging worked alright for a few events, but had to be redone a few months later.

The problem caused by a mount bold mount failing is that the seat mounted at only 3 points twists and causes the track to come free and the seat will move forward and back while driving, not a fun experience when competing.

Today we found the cause of the bolt mount failing. I removed the carpeting from the driver's side of the car, and underneath this carpet found that the nut that used to fill the hole had broken free of the four spot welds. We ended up welding it back into place, and as I reassembled the car I actually found that the passenger side rear bolt on the drivers seat wouldn't thread. So I had to take the car apart again and found the same thing to have occured. I'm glad it occured right there, and not during a 2006 event.

Steven welded the the nut back in place and the seat is amazing now! No more squeeks!

How did this all actually occur? I'm going to have to assume that one of the dealers who had worked on the seat in the past didn't properly tighten the bolts down, and the seat was able to move around causing extra stress on the welds. Hopefully for 2006 we've got all of our seat issues squared away!

 

We had to weld in plates on all 4 drivers side mounts a couple of months ago

The floor pan had completely ripped out and pulled the nutplates through or broke them off between the subfloors.


Bryan

 

When I had my Sparco seat installed I had to have all four nuts rewelded on.

 

Chris, I know this is a little off topic but did you install a lap belt for your seat. I was going to do that this weekend but when I noticed that the buckle for the factory 3 point was attached to the seat instead of the car body I backed out of the install. I did not want to interfere with the stock buckle as I use the Z as my daily drive...

Kirk

 

I run with a G Force strap, not any additional belts in the car, I wrap the strap around my chest to hold me in place when I autocross. Though after road racing this weekend I feel naked in the Z in the stock seat belt.

 

What were you racing? We were at Hallett on Sunday Kay was running the 350 in the High Speed Touring group and I was racing the 240Z. Took a 3rd place finish home for the first race of the season

 

See my other thread