Hi all.

My driver's seat recliner adjuster cable broke where it meets the adjuster paddle, at the front.

Basically there is an S shaped locator pin crimped on to the cable and the pin had chafed/ snapped off. There was no room to re-attach the pin at the front.

So what I did was remove the cover at the rear of the seat squab where the actual mechanism is, to expose the adjuster there. The cable is attached to the actual adjuster arm with another S shaped locator pin there. I then disconnected this pin and pulled the whole inner cable through at this end so that I had in my hand a cable with an S pin on one end and still broken at the other.

There is no need to remove the outer cable that runs though the seat. Leave that in place.

I then tidied up the broken end of the cable and fed the broken end through the outer cable from the front of the seat, so that the broken end was now at the rear of the seat and the still attached S pin was at the front. I then attached this S pin to the paddle.

Ok, so we now have a paddle that moves the cable again.

I then took the detached S pin and located that in the adjuster arm and then, using one of those screw terminal block, I attached the pin to the wire.

It appears to have done the job. The seat reclines and it doesn't interfere with the cover either. How long it will last I don't know, but Fiat wanted to charge me over £20 for the cable!

Picture below, anyway. Hope this helps some of you.

Panda

Nice little fix Pandabloke.
The terminal block should grip the cable well enough, and if you file a small flat on the pin where the terminal screw sits (there will be a mark from the screw on it now), it'll grip without slipping.

Good plan Doc! I was having trouble initially getting the cheap blocks to tighten without the thread stripping. With a small filed 'lip' you wouldn't need to do it up quite so tight.

Incidentally, the repair is still going strong since the post date.

I just used a bike brake cable and simply tied it at the metal lever end over a year ago.
Loop the cable through the eye on the adjuster handle , feed it through the existing outer cable and then through the metal lever arm and tie .

I have had my Multipla for 3 years and relied on forums the whole time. Forums have kept the car in the family, without them I daresay the Multipla and I would have parted our ways a long time ago. However thanks to the forums it just keeps getting fixed.

I have to say a big thank you to the poster of this thread - I have just repaired my drivers seat recline mechanism for the grand total of £1.30. I used the new bike brake cable option. I threaded this through the existing sleeve and attached an electrical terminal block on each end.

Now to see how long it will last!

tallsmall said:

I
.....I have to say a big thank you to the poster of this thread - I have just repaired my drivers seat recline mechanism for the grand total of £1.30. I used the new bike brake cable option. I threaded this through the existing sleeve and attached an electrical terminal block on each end.

Now to see how long it will last!

Click to expand...

You're welcome! It's funny how these threads start and then another person replies on the thread to say how they did the same job. Glad you managed to repair it and when mine goes again, I'll probably go for the bike cable fix.

Incidentally, my fix is still going strong from the original date of the post.

I have also just saved myself about £800 from using the forums by lubricating the clutch pivot arm when two garages told me I needed a new clutch!

Another great fix

I attempted this today as my centre front seat has cable snapped at front paddle took the plastic cover off at back. But there is a metal plate underneath unlike the passenger and drivers seat. Any ideas how I access mechanism please????

TIA