Z1NONLY

iTrader: (2)

Sorry for the small novel, but maybe someone else can benefit from my headache.

A few years ago during ZdayZ, I remember my my seat going "flat" under braking. The forward-most **** was adjusted to bring the seat up under my knees but collapsed back to flat under braking. (Hope that explanation makes sense)

I managed to get everything aligned and re-adjusted, but I think that was the first sign of what would become a rather big issue. It seemed to sneak up on me slowly, but I have been autocrossing my Z for ~7 years and the driver's seat has gotten progressively "wobbly" over time.

I have always sat kind of frog-legged and used my knees to keep me in place under hard cornering, but that job seemed to get more difficult with time as well. (So much so that my knee went into the door while on course last year. IIRC)






I was able to get a replacement used, and went on thinking the wobble was just normal "wear and tear".

I got curious last year and investigated the issue only to learn that I had broken the floor.

The floor had tabs (with integrated nuts) spot-welded under the sheet-metal in the floor and I had broken those spot-welds on the two front holes. It took a dental tool and forever to hook the tab, pull it up against the hole long enough to crazy glue it and then reinstall the seat and use the the bolts to pull it up against the bottom of the floor and secure the seat.

At the time, I thought I had found the cause of the wobble but thought the seat was secure-enough and let it be.

Fast-forward to two weeks ago when I started prepping my car for ZdayZ, and I took care of a litany of stuff.

The Z was ready...

Except for that wobbly, squeaky, driver's seat. I decided to dig even deeper and investigate the seat itself. Well not only was the seat broken, the floor had gotten worse to the point that I considered it unsafe and decided it had to be fixed.

First the seat:

This is what the seat should look like (Passenger seat from my Z)



This is what the driver's seat looked like

Cross plate gone



Frame cracked



The front holes after the tabs dropped in (The front tabs were still able to secure their mounting points when bolted-in)



One of the rear holes still ok


The one that pushed me to actually try and fix all this (because there was nothing left of the tab)



Out with the carpet for a closer look (and I fished the tabs out too)


The front "tabs"



Using one bolt, gentle driving, and gravity to keep seat in place, I drove it over to our club president's house for some fabrication/welding.


Repaired seat cross plate



Cracks repaired



For the floor repair Dave just welded the tabs over the holes after some prep.



For the messed-up rear, the nut was welded to a fender washer and the assembly was welded over the hole.


Did the same thing to the other rear hole to keep the seat level.


And here she is back together. It was a pain, but I wish I had fixed this sooner. The car feels new again with the driver's seat solid again.


Cliffs: Vtech kicked in. Broke seat. Broke mounting holes. repaired with ugly, but effective, welding and some mild fabricating.

Russ@Z1

iTrader: (65)

Damn, the thought of all this in combination is just downright scary.

I'm glad you got it all taken care of before something worse could have happened.

Z1NONLY

iTrader: (2)

I was only going to fix the seat before I found the mounting point in the back that was so broken it apparently wasn't doing much of anything.

That clinched it for me. Had to fix it once I saw that.

Lightning Guy

iTrader: (8)

just proves autoX = bad, LOL

SparkleCityHop

iTrader: (30)

Very glad you got this repaired. Safety repairs/upgrades FTW.

sofa king

iTrader: (25)

damn! thats scary. nice fix.

Z1NONLY

iTrader: (2)

0jiggy0

iTrader: (13)

Good thing you were never in an accident wow.

Lightning Guy

iTrader: (8)

Mike i think we did the same thing in the Mule at Momentum, just never cared enough about the car to investigate.

I think if I were you I'd make a nice presentation of that and send it to NNA customer service. Not saying there is any thing wrong with the OEM seats; however, they could send out a friendly reminder to all registered Z owners to check for this...

Also proves my point about fixed back seats and motorsports! When you get a certain level, you need harnesses + seat + rollover protection. can't do a couple of them, you have to do all three.

Z1NONLY

iTrader: (2)

I might send Nissan a letter. (Just as a sort of "heads up" on what *can* happen.)

beezee

iTrader: (19)

Good job for sharing experience and all those detailed pics.

Z1NONLY

iTrader: (2)

For anyone worried about their seat, the area that was cracked/broken on my seat is easy to get to by just unzipping both zippers on the back of the seat.

The mounting points are not as easy to get a good look at though.

Alfred_Buchi

Reviving this thread rather than starting a new one.

Has anyone else run into this issue? I just discovered I have 2 bolts that are nearing uselessness and I have to figure out the best way to repair this.

The factory "tabs" seem really thin and I'm shocked that more failures haven't been seen. If someone unknowingly has this issue in 2 bolt holes, or even more possibly, the seat could definitely break free in an accident.

Yes my car has been heavily tracked but this is unexpected. What's the point of spending all this money on fixed back FIA certified bucket seats, high quality seat rails, and a nice harness if the weak point is the actual floor of the car that the mounts bolt to?

OP did you ever send this to Nissan? Did you receive a reply?

Z1NONLY

iTrader: (2)

No. I didn't send a letter.

I still think the beginning of the problem was a failure in the back of the seat that allowed a lot of side-to-side movement at the rails. I think If I had repaired the seat back when it failed, my floor would have probably been fine.

Have you removed the stock cover on the back of your seat and inspected the metal? If it's broken, I would expect any repair you make to the floor to be temporary. If not, I'm curious about the circumstances of your particular failure. (Wonder if there is some other symptom I should be on the lookout for)

Alfred_Buchi

The stock seat has some play in it side to side, I didn't take a closer look at it yet. In any case this seat won't be going back into the car. My bucket seat and rails arrived this week so I'm ready to drop that in once I can find a way to give the bolt something to chew on.

Front right mounting threads/tab is completely gone. Front left showing signs of wear, rear left showing signs of repair in the past but no idea how well the welding was done. Oh and the rear right one looks good. 1 out of 4 isn't all that bad right?

I believe my best option is to cut out all 4 mounting locations and weld in heavier plates with bolts welded sticking upwards so the seat rails can sit on top of that and nuts + washers can secure the seats. This is extreme, but sounds like the BEST option.

For a temporary fix I can try to source a new tab and re weld the one mount hole that is missing - I am heading to the track this weekend and have no time to do this right before tomorrow.

For a more ghetto temporary fix a long bolt and some large washers may be used all the way through the floor, but with the position of the front right bolt hole I really don't like this idea. On a flatter pan I would be okay with this option because I could easily reenforce the hell out of it.

I was hoping someone may have a better idea for me.

I've been planning this track event for months and really don't want to miss it, but the seat is currently very unsafe and I am uncomfortable with most of my options as a safe fix...

PDX_Racer

iTrader: (2)

I had the same problem, with the same solution.