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MG MGB Technical - Headrests

A question reguarding the removal of the Headrest from the seat.
These are seats from a '72 B, so they are more of a "pillow" shape than a "teardrop" shape.
They appear to be siezed in the channel they run in. I can get absolutely no movement from them at all.
Anyone know a fix or trick to take these out, without destrying either the headrests or seats?
JR Ross

JR,
There is a flat piece of spring steel with a small triangular protusion on either side of the headrest tube that is compressed when slotted into the seat back. These expand inside the seat to hold the headrest in place when adjusted up or down. The protusions are tapered in both directions so that the headrest is allowed up or down movements. It is basically held in place by friction. When the headrest is pushed all the way down the protusion expands all the way out, making it difficult to pull up. The first time this happened to me I removed the upholstery clips and reached in to compress the protrusions and pushed up the headrest (a difficult task.) The second time it occured I found that I could force it out by inserting a metal pipe under the headrest and grasping both ends I could exert enough force to compress the protusions and move the headrest up.

Joe G.
J. E. Guthrie

JR. There is also a set of plastic rollers that slide along the headrest when it moves up and down. These may be frozen If you have enough room, unscrew the plastic plate under the headrest and take the foam off. You should be able to then hit the shaft with a rubber mallet and loosen it.
Bruce Cunha

I made 2 thin "fingers" shaped the same as the head rest tube. These pushed down from above, thru the "finisher" on the top of the seat, on each side of the tube and over the protrusions. Then a good pull and it all came out. I think I then left the spring steel plate out!
Michael Beswick

The spring plate only stops the headrest being removed,
it has a protruding edge that engages into a hole in the seat tube. As Michael has noted a thin metal strip can be used to compress the spring strip or as usually happened it was given a large tug and pulled out !

The up and down friction for the head rest was by means of a sort of coiled up spring inserted sideways into a channel in the seat - such that it exerted pressure onto the side of the headrest tube and held it up. These usually break and are now often replaced witha plastic insert.

R.
richard boobier

Brute force. A telescopic hydraulic jack on the floor behind the seat, and a bar or piece of timber wedged at the back of the tube.
PaulH Solihull

Thanks to all for the advice.

In the end, I took Paul's advice and just used "brute force". Tipped the seat back forward, and the gave a few good "whacks" with a rubber mallet on the underside of the headrest,and out she popped.

FYI: this seat had a steel bracket in which the headrest tube slid, and at the bottom of this bracket, a steel pin, held against the face of the tube by a spring clip. This steel pin pressed against the "face" of the tube, rather than the sides. The spring clip had long ago "lost" its "spring", and infact, had just about disappeared into the mass of rust which had once been the steel bracket.

I would venture to say that this seat had been exposed many times to the elements, since almost the entire seat frame was very heavily rusted. Anyway; mission accomplished, once again with help from this board. Thanks again to all.
JR Ross

This thread was discussed between 01/10/2011 and 02/10/2011

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