Seat removal help

[Weathers]

Anyone any bright ideas. The seats in my car are bolted in with Allen key bolts by the looks of things.

The rear bolds seem happy to come undone but the front ones are just spinning.

I can get to the hex key on the passenger side just, so with patience I should be able to undo them. The drivers seat is a little further forward and therefore I can see but not really get at them to secure the bold to undo the nut.

The seats are on runners but I cannot get either of them to move. I imagine the mechanism has long since seized up. I’ve tried a reasonable amount of force but they aren’t budging at all.

Any bright ideas? I’ve tried wedging a screw driver between the bolt head and the seat frame but as they are round it still spins when I try to undo the nut. I can’t really get at them to “grap” the bolt head with anything even from the side. The only access at them is from the front under the seat, down the runner. There is zero access from above and because they are housed within the runner so you can’t get pliars or similar around them to grab them.

I don’t have the gear to cut off the nuts and I don’t want to damage the seats, runners or the car floor.

Suggestions?

[Nash]

Chris, I feel you pain. Can you see the ends of the nut under the car? If so cut a slot in the bolt shank on the end to act as a screwdriver slot. Then use a screwdriver to hold the bolt while you undo the nut.

[BIOMAN]

Wish I had read this Neil yesterday, would have saved my friendship with my daughter who was helping me get my passenger side seat out.

[graham b]

Its obvious...
Go to a 'seat' dealer

[Tony B]

Yes, as Neil’s said - that’s exactly what I had to do with my old ones, you can do it with a sharp hacksaw but a cutting disk is better. Works a treat

[Weathers]

Brilliant Neil! That is one option I hadn’t thought of. Beats having to grind them off. Especially given I haven’t got an operational angle grinder.

I didn’t want to grab the bolt with eg bottle nosed pliers and knacker the thread because I wanted the nut to be able to be screwed off all the way.

I’ll rev up the dremel tomorrow and see how I get on.

Will replace the nuts and bolts anyway so killing a few in the process is no great problem as long as I’ve got one of each intact to measure up happy days.

Thanks for your help.

[DJ.]

Good idea Neil
I got fed up struggling with my seat.
The first solution was to weld steel bars to one side of the allen bolt so it couldn't turn in the runner.

The second was to bin the adjustable runner and to make aluminium box sections with captive nuts top and bottom, so the bolts go in from underneath. The main reason I did this was to spread the load into the aluminium floor over a larger area.

[Rob E]

I had no end of problems with the bolts falling out/pushing up so I welded them to the seat sliders, then everything can be done under the car , simples

[Weathers]

I was questioning this set up vs captive nut or similar but I suppose it’s the cheaper option. I don’t have welding kit so I have limited modification options.

If I could move the seat it would have been simple but as ever with these jobs nothing ever is.

[Fury1630]

Another option would be to drill a hole - say 3mm through the allen bolt head & hold it still with a drill shank. Not as easy as slotting the tail though.