Rear folding seats - Back assembly not folding all the way down

[Paul Thomas]

I've been looking at interior of my 1984 J. One of the issues I'm having is that the back assembly for the rear seats are is not folding all the way flat because the edge of the plastic is in the way. I need an additional 1/2 inch to allow enough room for the back part of the seat to fall into the bottom recessed area.

Has anyone had that issue and what was the fix? I've attached a photo of how the back assembly currently lays when folded down.

[kortopates]

Take all the mounting screws out and see if you can align the plastic to allow the seat back to lay in flush. Then you’ll know if it’s incorrectly mounted or perhaps wrong plastic part. But i doubt they made different seat back sizes so i am guessing it was incorrectly mounted which would need a new set of holes under the seat.


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[Z W]

I would think someone improperly re-installed either the seat back frame or the plastic tub it drops into. I would carefully take both apart and see if there's a way to put it back together where everything meshes properly.

The plastic tub is brittle and takes a lot of weight/abuse. Mine is cracked in a couple places. We've repaired it and it cracks again. Not my favorite design. Yours may be broken somewhere too and need repair.

[PT20J]

There are two different designs for the folding back seats. Some just fold down. Others were designed to get a little more back seat room by positioning the back a couple of inches rearward. These will not fold flat unless you remove the back seat cushion, pull the hitch pin that holds the frame onto the adjusting mechanism, lift the back frame off and reposition it onto the frame tube holes that are closest to the back of the frame. There are instructions in the POH that are accurate, but difficult to understand until you actually do it. Took me a while to figure it out.

[Fritz1]

Backrest may not be pushed all the way down, check if the locking pins are in, I took my backseats out completely, saves about 30 lb, use them maybe once a year

[Paul Thomas]

I took things apart today; it looks like it was just installed too far back (it's a PMA part, not the original as I thought).

The good news is that by finding the sticker under the seat pan, I also solved my overhead console issue.