2006 Symbol Seat removal for battery change

I wonder if someone out there can advise how one removes the bolts to take out the driver's seat to change the battery. Took it into a caravan accessories shop and the young lad there said he would do it as he had "done many times before" Half an hour later, he was still trying to remove the bolts and had succeeded in loosening them but could not remove them. When I got home, I tried myself, but there seems no way one can hold whatever it is which the bolt screws into while removing the bolt itself. Am I being really stupid? - is there an easy method? - or should I book it into a motor caravan dealer? (I did phone the main Peugeot dealer in Leeds and as soon as they heard it was a motor caravan, refused to have anything to do with it!)

Many thanks in anticipation. Bill.

Hi WHBS,
Our Lancashire is on a Peugeot boxer base but if the seats are the same the back is easy, 2 allen screws, but the front has 2 bolts with loose self locking nuts underneath I get them out using a 10 mm extra deep socket on the nut, and an ordinary spanner on top, the nut is awkward to get at even with this socket.

Brian2

Do you have to remove the seat? The Symbol is not that much different from the Symphony and I have replaced the leisure battery twice without removing the seat.
I drop the front of the squab as low as it will go and then push the seat forward until it's touching the dash.
I can then lift the battery out.

Frank

Agree Frank , I just push the seat as far forward to get at the battery, mind you never actually taken it out.
To dark to see if it will pull out, but it should do

Gary

GJ1023 and boxerman. No, there is a metal plate under the seat with a circular hole in the centre effectively keeping non-diy's like me from getting anywhere near the battery.

murph: Yes the back bolts seem easier but the front ones are the obvious pig. I'll try with the tools you suggest when I can raise the temperature inside the van a few degrees above freezing!

Thank you for the replies - much appreciated.

Bill

My Harmony has a set up like yours.
There are six countersunk allen key headed threaded bolts, two on the front edge and four down into the pedestal.
The threads have been cut into the steel of the pedestal.
You have to keep moving the seat about on the runners and swivel to access each of them in turn.

When I first took them out, after owning the 'van' for about eight years, they were as tight as you know what. They were also too long in my opinion as well and seemed that they had been fitted cross threaded!

If I remember, I unscrewed a bit then tightened them up and then undid them again, bit by bit......if you follow. Definitely a 'pig' of a job.
Even had to put an extension bar on the allen key!

When I finally got them out, I wire brushed them, sprayed WD40 in the threads in the pedestal, smeared with 'copperslip' and fitted them back into the holes without the seat on.

Just to make sure they were a nice free fit.
I then put the seat back ant refitted the screws.

I think the reason they were as tight as they were, was the fact that as they were too long, the exposed threads became rusty and as you unscrewed them, they just got tighter and tighter in the threads.

Hope that helps.

PB

Ah so the plot thickens , I guess you must have a swizzle seat on drivers side, which my 05 does not. I had that on my previous van , it had 4 allen bolts with 4 lock nuts underneath. Just did what has been posted previous and used a deep socket and an allen key.

Gary

Yep - I have a swivel seat on the drivers side but there are no allen key bolts - they are chrome bolts which loosen but then it is nigh on impossible to reach the thingies underneath to hold while the bolt is unscrewed. Needless to say, it is equally impossible to tighten them up again............ Weather is still a pig but will have another go tomorrow.

Thanks for the advice folk.

Bill

gj1023 wrote:Ah so the plot thickens , I guess you must have a swizzle seat on drivers side, which my 05 does not. I had that on my previous van , it had 4 allen bolts with 4 lock nuts underneath. Just did what has been posted previous and used a deep socket and an allen key.

Gary

Glad you got it sorted Gary.
Don't forget plenty of lubricant to make it easier 'next' time!!

PB

LOL PB you misread my post, I said my previous van etc , not my one now.

I recall just four countersunk socket head screws secured into captive nuts on the seat base. Sure the seat needed to be moved backards and forwards, but removal seemed pretty straightforward.

The seat does need to be removed in our Harmony to access the leisure battery as the aperture in the front of the seat base is just too small, particularly when a 110Ah battery is fitted.


Bartfarst