Dear greenvolvo,

Hope you're well. The likely reason there's little guidance about dismantling the seat drive mechanism is that this should not need to be done. The parts - e.g., #9206264 (gear housing, right, electric seat) is still available from Volvo. The cost is about $200 at a US-based Volvo dealer. The same is true for the entire seat sub-frame, #6840320, which costs about $250.

The "gear housing right" normally should not be damaged or wear-out in normal use. Even if the seat jams in the track, the cable will absorb the punishment of a user, who keeps trying to move the seat: the drive gear will not strip.

All this said, the drive gear mechanism is secured to the frame by two nuts, that go on studs, affixed to the frame, on which the rack grear is mounted.

Should you need to disassemble the sub-frame, be sure to align both sides of the seat mechanism, using a roofer's steel square. This square should be large enough to ensure that the end of each track is exactly "square", i.e., that one track end is not forward (or behind) the other. That is, the long leg of the square needs to be longer than the distance between both seat tracks.

The best way to clear debris from seat tracks is to use compressed air. The best seat track lubricant is that made for garage door tracks/rollers. It comes out as an aerosol - so penetrates easily - and then congeals into a non-drying gel. This gel provides good long-term lubricity, so long as fine dust is not present.

As to shortening the drive cable's plastic sheathing, I've never wanted to try to remove the metal end-cap from the plastic sheathing and then try to re-position the metal end-cap on the sheathing. Using a short section of a steel pin to "lengthen" the cable does not risk making the sheathing too "short". If the pin is too long, I'd just make a shorter pin.

Two of the three seat-position drive cables (#3541597 and #3541598) are available from Volvo. The cable that enables front-to-back movement is #3541598. It costs about $27 from a US-based Volvo dealer.

Hope this helps.

Yours faithfully,

Spook