Vockroth

I recently replaced one of the O2 sensors on my IS300 where it was easier to remove the passenger seat. By removing the headrest and flipping the front passenger seat into/onto the back seat gave me enough room. After the job I mounted the passenger seat and went to slide the headrest in. This is when I noticed that the Headrest guide was missing the locking mechanism. It was just gone. I searched and found the locking mechanism plate. A week or so later I found a compression spring on the floor behind the drivers seat. It looked like it came out of a retracting ball point pen but a little heavy on the compression. I threw it in the glove box not knowing from where it came. For some reason I had it made up in my mind I needed a torsion spring for this support. At any other time this mistake may have cost me this easy repair but since I am not driving this car but once a month, I am not taking it to the carwash once a week as usual. A month or 2 goes by and the headrest support was on my mind. I started researching to replace the part. I found the support to be around 13 bucks. Not too bad. I started researching how to remove and replace this headrest support and found out I would have to tear the seat apart to get to the supports locking tab. I could do this but I am way lazy and take a long time to do anything because I am careful not to leave any evidence that anything on my car was ever repaired. No fingerprints, No DNA. No double back tape where the wheel weights were removed during re balance. I figure someone put my whole car together without scratching bolts or leaving grease trails and I expect the same with repairs. I went out to check out the situation and realized the spring I had found did go to the locking mechanism. I noticed there was a place for 2 springs so I started looking for the second spring. There it was in the same place as I found the first. I have the 2 springs and the locking plate now what? Looking carefully at the support’s base I noticed something protruding about a 32nd of an inch. At first I thought it as maybe a place where the plastic was injected into the mold but soon realized it was a retaining pin. Just like that I realized how it went together. I did remove this pin and actually lost it for a bit. It only needed to be pulled out a little to slip the locking plate into the support base. I did notice that the retaining pin was staked giving it a head. I mention this because this retaining pin would only go back into the hole one way.

madassorz

this is something 0.1% of car owners would have to ever fix I'll assume..not a usual item that gets broken...

but glad to know Toyota/Lexus still carries bits and pieces for the cars still.