We needed to turn our daughters car seat from rear facing to front facing this week, and were very disappointed to see that the top of the car seat hit the head rest before the back of the car seat was flush with the seat. The only solution was to remove the head rest. I spent some time with google and found that the procedure is very simple. I figured that I would repost it here, as I'm certain others will find it useful at some point.

The head rests are held in with simple wire clips. All you need to do is push the seat material down around the plastic post mount and you'll see the ends of the clip. Simply take a pair of needle nose pliers and push the clip toward the back of the seat and it will come off. Be careful not to push it back into the seat material where you can't get it out once it's off. I came very close to that happening! After you take both sides off, the head rest simply slides right up and out.

Anyway, I wanted to give back a little to the forum since I've learned SO much here over the years.

Doug

 

pictures? I almost did this for my twins. but then threw them on the third row

 

You should never throw your kids they could get hurt,

 

they bounce quite excellently

 

........................

 

Doh! Saw this a month late! Found the clip the hard way.

Also, once you remove the headrest, you can put the clip back on so when the car seat comes out, it will lock back in place!

 

Do you have the bench seat in the back? I'm wondering how different the head rests are from what I have.

I have the captains and never had to remove the head rests. I just pull the tilt lever on the rest to get it to lean forward, slide the rear anchor through the opening between the rest and the seat and then lock it back in the up position so that it doesn't interfere with the child seat.

I would have thought that Ford would make it so that you didn't have to remove the rests just to put the rear anchor in place. I would be very interested to learn that they make it difficult to secure your kids properly.

 

I've got the 2nd row captains - the ones that the headrest folds for 3rd row entry and also "kneel" for cargo mode.

We use the Britax Boulevard and when we turned it to front-facing, the top hits the captains seat headrest and can't be latched in place level with the ground. The rear anchor will go fin, but the britax seat is tall...

 

Oh! Sorry, I misunderstood. That makes more sense now.

 

Thank you!
I just purchased an 08 Expedition EL
One of the head rests on the 3rd row, was missing the release strap so I could not completely fold the seats for cargo.

The dealer where I bought it has ordered me a new pull strap.
So I decided to remove the head rests for now and I could not figure it out!
But thanks to this site I did remove it. (didnt loose the c-clips either )

And the best part is, once I had it off and upside down, I could see the strap was just pushed up into the slot! I hooked it out and it works great!

 

Yup, great isn't it! Very helpful group of people here!