245 rear seat release lever repair

There was a recent post about repairing the broken handle release on
the back of the second seat in a 240 wagon. Happened to me about three
days ago. I saw the post- $45 for the part and 2 hours of work
removing the seat cover and cushion to get to the latch, so figured I
had nothing to lose. Here's what I did:

The grip portion of the handle broke off fairly cleanly along its
bottom edge, and the handle grip was broken in two. I began by using
super glue for plastic (_NOT_ standard super glue) to glue the two
halves of the grip back together. This glue has a solvent in it that
melts the plastic a bit as the cyanoacrylate cures. it makes for a
very strong bond on most plastics.

Once that was cured, I used plastic epoxy (sometimes sold as Plastic
Weld or similar) to fill the hollow backside along the crack. This
stuff cures very quickly- a working time of around three minutes-
maybe a bit less.

I slipped a piece of wax paper under the remaining portion of the
latch on the back of the seat to avoid gluing the latch into position,
then once again used the plastic super glue to attach the grip back
onto the moving portion of the latch.

Once that was cured I mixed up another batch of the epoxy and created
a fillit along the radius where the grip meets the latch. I allowed
that to cure and repeated, making the fillit thicker.

While that was setting up I lubricated the latches at each end of the
seat with some spray dry lube.

Get back to me in a couple of months and I will let you know how it
has held up....

The best brand I have found for these products is Devcon, but there
are others that are effective as well.
__ __
Randy & \ \/ /alerie's
\__/olvos
'90 245 Estate - '93 965 Estate
"Shelby" & "Kate"

 

glued back seat handle

Hi Randy,

Did it hold?

Alex (Holland)