some advice please

[ace_the_bass]

having felt the carpet damp on the back passenger floor i peeled the carpet up to reveal a nasty hole. i've decided that i'll take the whole carpet out front to back to investigate any more rot and also to give the seats and carpet a bloody good clean while im at it. ive taken the back seats out fine but how do the front seats come out? ive removed two of the fixings on the rail at the back of the seat but i cant get access to the other one and the front seems almost impossible. on the drivers side i cant get my star driver anywhere near any of them,even with the seat as far forward as it will go and adjusted to its most upright position.

my plan is to do all my investigating/cleaning over the easter weekend when i'll have some free time. plese help!

[Dollywobbler]

They're tricky, that's for sure. You need to move the seat as far back as you can on its runners, but even then you might need a torx bit in a small ratchet. That's what I tend to use.

[mat_fenwick]

I've got a 10 mm hex to 1/4" hex adaptor, which means I can use standard Torx bits with a 10 mm ratchet spanner. That's probably about as low profile as you can go, but I don't recall it being that tight removing the front seats.

[citronut]

you do know the base swabs un/hook from the frame dont you,

two wire clips around the front cross tube ( just under the front edge of the base swab, now lift the front end of the swab and reach under it to two elastic bands and just un/hook these from the plastic under tray of the swab

regards malcolm

[Defender110]

/\ yes as that, just remove the seat bases.

[RxBX]

you do know the base swabs un/hook from the frame dont you,

two wire clips around the front cross tube ( just under the front edge of the base swab, now lift the front end of the swab and reach under it to two elastic bands and just un/hook these from the plastic under tray of the swab

regards malcolm

As can be clearly seen in the photo below !



The /\ is actually a current E-bay listing (collection only in the Wakefield area) click on photo for link

.

[ace_the_bass]

Thanks everyone. Will keep you posted. If the floor seems ok it's all systems go for the rest of the resto. If the floor is knackered all over it will be be stripped and sold!

[mat_fenwick]

I knew about unclipping the seat base (handy for camping to avoid sitting on damp grass), but never thought to do it when removing the seat

[KevR]

Never knew the swabs unclipped! But then, never felt the need. Don't recall ever having any trouble getting the bolts out...

[mat_fenwick]

Me neither, although I did once make up a tool for the Xantia seats by welding a Torx bit to a rod so I could slide it underneath and unscrew a quarter of a turn at a time. It was some years later that I realised how easy the job was if I just slid the seats back...

[citsncycles]

Joys of a Mk1 - I just used an allen key!

Where exactly is the hole in the rear footwell - if it's right at the back I'd advise dropping the fuel tank as it's very close to that part of the car.

If the front floors are rotten they're not too bad a job to repair if you can bend some metal to shape, but I'd check very carefully the box section that runs under the front footwells. Have a look at the Timex blog for front floor repairs!

[ace_the_bass]

The hole is at the back, about
Two inches from the edge of the door. It's not too bad though really. The rest of the floor looks fine at the back.... I think something has hit the car underneath which has dented the floor which has then rotted. As I say the rest of the floor looks fine. Worth taking all the carpet out though and check it all out. Once the inside has been sorted I need to replace the exhaust, work out where the slight oil leak is coming from, put new tyres on, renew the disks and pads then putting it in for an mot.

[mat_fenwick]

It could be around the bung they put in the floor to allow the coatings to drain away when the shells are dipped during manufacture.