Today at Atelier Kaz - ex-Honda R&D, F1, Indy/CART engineer

When I heard about the seat noise issue from the owner, I thought it was the common squeaking noise caused by the seat leather scratching each other.


However, when the owner showed me the exact noise, it was the metal clicking noise around the base of the seat.

So, decided to take the driver seat out and found that the noise was coming from the weakened spot welding at the aluminium frame.


After talking to the owner over the phone, we agreed to first look into the base metal frame and leave the back panel frame until the next service.

So, started disassembling the leather and foam.


Base frame removed from the seat rail.

The blue marks are where the spot welding was carried out.


If you twist the frame, it will create metal clicking noise and for this type of noise, it is best to apply extra spot weldings but not possible for me.


So, the alternative solution is to ‘massage’ the area by using the parallel punch several times.


After going though many spot welding positions, there was no more noise from the base frame.


With my body weight and shape, I couldn’t test whether there was any noise from the other frame (the back panel) or not.


If there is any noise from the back panel, we’ll deal with it during the next service.


Treated the metal frame with other solutions to further minimise the chance of causing the noise and applied thread lock to the anchor bolt of the seat belt holder and placed the driver seat back in place.


Carried out another test driving session to confirm that there is no noise from the base frame of the seat.


Ideally, would like to further look into the engine torque delivery issue by checking the engine vacuum and other areas but for the time being, these are what we agreed to carry out for this service so far.


Just need to wash the car tomorrow morning and the owner will collect the car in the afternoon.


Thank you for using my service.

Regards,
Kaz