02 VLX Seat -Metal Thread Grommet Spinning

[AJarvis1267]

Was working to take the bolts out on my VLX pillion seat so I can mount a driver backrest. Got one bolt out okay, but now I'm "screwed" because the metal thread grommet in the plastic base of the pillon is now spinning and can't get the bolt out without wrecking the plastic base.

Do I just pull it out, redrill new holes and remount, or maybe try to find a new pillon seat to replace it with? Suggestions?

[John Hopkins]

Sounds a bit drastic..

post a close up photo of the offending item..

I've never seen a VLX..

won't a nut and bolt do?

John.

[Scrapdog2grand]

one of the bolts spin on the driver seat of my ACE, I push on it from the cushion side to seat it and it stops spinning.
now the bolt on my ACE go in from the cushion side and I have to remove nuts to take the brackets off, is this the same set up?
hope this works for you. I'll go take a look at my VLX see whats up with it.

there were a bunch of passenger seats avail on ebay not to long ago, not sure if its the same as the ACE but look like it.I was looking for a second driver seat to hack up.

[AJarvis1267]

Figured it out...sorry I didn't take pics of the underside of the seat before I reassembled.

Basically, on the 99 and up VLX, the front and rear seats are connected by a metal bracket on the underside of the assembly (two-piece). The front seat has the bolts coming down from the seat base, through the connector bracket, then the attachment braket, then two nuts to hold that part of the assembly together.

The rear seat base has two holes with threaded metal sleeves (female) that two bolts are then screwed into and loc-tited to keep them from coming loose. The new bracket for my driver's backrest fits between the seat base and the front/rear seat connection bracket and has two matching holes to line up with the mount points.

I got one rear seat bolt out, but on the second one the metal sleeve in the rear seat base kept turning with the bolt through the bracket. Time to do a little modification...I took my dremel, and on the side where the seat bolt wouldn't come out, I cut out the end of the bracket through to the hole, so basically I could slide the new piece in (took a bit of percussive maintenance), then I lined the opposite-side hole up and reinstalled the "cooperative" bolt and tightened the entire assembly back up. Re-attached and remounted the entire seat assembly and installed the backrest onto the driver backrest bracket, and I got it done.

Lesson Learned: Next time, I will try to remember to take pictures during the assembly process to share with the forum. I kind of got on a roll when I figured out a solution to my problem and got a little OCD getting it done