Some of you may have experienced this problem as well so I thought I would post my solution. A while back while driving I heard a loud snap and my lumbar support disappeared! Doing some searching I found that Ford only sells this as a complete part for around $200. Some people have found that their cable from the **** to the lumbar mechanism had broken and have been successful in using a bicycle cable to fix it. I finally got around to opening mine up the other day and I discovered that a small metal arm used to hold the cable in place had broken, thus providing no support for the cable to pull against.



In my opinion, it’s a really poor design as it puts all the weight of you pushing against the lumbar on this very small piece of metal. However, here is my 39C fix…

I went to Home Depot and picked up a 12” piece of 5/32 steel. This stuff is quite difficult to bend, but can be accomplished with a vise, hammer, hacksaw and some vise grips. First I took the broken pieces of the bracket and using a sharpie I marked out on the new 5/32 steel where I wanted my bends. As you can see in the picture, the bracket consists of a “J” shape at the bottom which goes through a hole in the support bar, and an open ended loop at the opposite end where the cable passes through.



Placing the metal in the vise horizontally, I used the shank of a screwdriver that matched the inside diameter of the loop and using vise grips I bent the 5/32 rod around the shank. I then placed the rod vertically in the vise and using a hammer I made the 90 degree bend in the rod. Then placing the rod in the vise at the sharpie marks I hammered the “J” bends into the rod. Finally, I used a hacksaw to cut off the excess rod.

I ended up making two of the brackets because the first one came out just a tad short. The hardest part of the fix was getting the fabric connector apart (and back together) on the seat.



Once you do get it apart though this is what your seat will look like:



And the end result in place and ready to close the seat up:



Other than that, it’s a quick, easy, and cheap fix. I had it apart and back together in under an hour.

If you’ve had a quick loss of lumbar support in your driver seat, this may be your answer.

Fordmanss

 

Nice job . You might want to get this put in the How To section.

 

Nice work! I'll have to remember this tip if mine ever goes out. $200 vs. $0.39!