I recently purchased my 01 F150 from my mother and her husband. I was discussing with him the fact that the lumbar support sucked because it hurt my back. He informed me that the support had broken at some point during his ownership. I decided to pull the cover off my driver's seat today to take a look and see if I could figure out what failed. When I got the cover pulled up I found that the plastic lumbar "ladder" was busted at the bottom.





Here is a picture of the spring steel metal stays that create tension on the cable as you rotate the **** and force the "ladder" back to the flat position when you release the tension on the ****.



I kinda thought for a bit on how I wanted to tackle fixing this and decided to remove the spring steel stays on either side and support the entire length of the "ladder" with 1/8" abs plastic. It seemed flexible enough and offered roughly the same resistance and the two metal stays that I removed.



On the other side, I put speed clips to secure the screws so the couldn't just pull through the plastic over time. You can see how positioned the screws so the plastic would hold the busted area of the "ladder" together and keep it strong.



Also, it's hard to tell, but the top two screw holes were slotted so that when the **** was cranked and the unit flexed, it would allow it to glide some and wouldn't stress the plastic at those screw points. You can see the repaired part and the two stays that were removed.




I reinstalled the whole assembly into the seat back and attached the cable and it seems to work like a dream. Hopefully this might help someone else save $95 which I read is the replacement cost of the new support.

 

Awesome post and instructive pictorial...I must admit I may be a little predjudice, But I am proud to be called this man's Mothers Husband!!
I hope this helps others.

Good job Griff!!!!

 

Haha, well.... I could call you other things

 

Funny it broke right on the patent number. There's a patent not worth copying.

 

Yea, I noticed that also. I actually think the way it works is pretty slick, but I agree it's probably not the best designed lumbar support in the world. This truck has 168K miles on it, not sure when it broke, but it's still a lot of seat time. At least it's fairly easy to work on.

 

A lot of seat time with 275+ pounds sitting on it!!!!

 

Could someone explain how this lumbar assemble works? I just don't see where the cable hooks up or what is even the top or bottom. I have to pull mine apart and fix it this weekend.
Thanks

 

Sorry for the delayed response. I't actually so simple it's hard to explain. Once you pull the cover up on the seat it will be pretty self explanatory.

 

Thanks for the reply, I should have repaired it when I installed the heated seats. I couldn't remove the adjustment **** so I skipped it.
Hopefully I can attack it today.

 

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Little different but an easy fix.
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My ziptie repair, I might take it apart again and leave it looser, it always was a little tight even when the **** was completely loosened.

 

Off topic but what kind heated seats did you install?

 

I installed the crimestopper Hsk-150 Deluxe Heated Seat Kits and we couldn't be happier. They heat up very quick, much faster than the set we have in our taurus from heatedseatkits.com and less than half the cost!