E36 Seatback No Movement...

[Hamfisted]

I have a '97 328i and the passenger seat seatback stopped moving. The motor runs but the seatback remains frozen in one position. Anybody tackled this problem before with the E36?. Is the gearbox available seperately? Any help or suggestions are appreciated.




Mike

[Hamfisted]

Ok I pulled the seat out and tracked down the problem to the gearbox, specifically the blue nylon gear that acts as the intermediate drive gear for the seatback position drive. Anybody know of a replacement part available? Is the gearbox sold seperately? All I need is the blue nylon (or a brass replacement?) gear and pinion from the gearbox. Anybody got a powerseat they would part out? Thanks.




Mike....... Miami, FL

[camnipotent]

I have no idea if this would fit or if this is even what you are looking for. You will not be able to find a single gear unless someone is parting out their car. You'll need to get the whole motor. I hope this helps.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/BMW-E36-Z3-...sspagenameZWDVW

[Hamfisted]

Yeah the motors work fine, the problem is the gearbox and that nylon gear itself. I located one in a scrap yard, pulled the whole gearset out and gave the man $60. The dealer only wants to sell the whole subframe assembly, so you have to go elsewhere. I ended up just swapping the nylon gear off the junkyard gearset because there were some tiny differences in the tolerences and the junkyard gearset wouldn't fit into my 328i gearcase without jamming. The nylon gears are the same but the roller size must be micro different. I pulled the C-clip off and swapped nylon gears and its good to go now. I'm taking my old nylon gear to a local parts specialist that has a source for any gear, they just need the old one to match up. I'm gonna get a couple of spares. It would be nice to replace the nylon with some bronse gear but then the thing would last forever and we wouldn't want that.







Mike