2001 lumbar bags
 

Could anyone help me to find where to buy replacement lumbar bags for my 2001 SSEi? Also could use a diagram of how the seats come apart.
Thanks!

try GMpartsdirect.com they will usually give you an ilistration of how the seat is put together although a little generic.
and welcome to the forum

Don't have much available from my current location. I believe the back of the seat has a zipper on the side for easy access.

On the lumbar bags. They are probably direct from GM. Never really heard of them popping or leaking. Usually on the older models you'd have a compressor or airline failure before a bag went.

yes there is a zipper down the outside back of the seat which allows you to remove the leather from it

http://www.trademotion.com/schematics/F/FA00290.gif
depending on which seat $68.02 for the passenger and $118.55 for the driver

The lumbar supports in your car are not bags, they are a metal structure consisting of 2 vertical metal strips that have 5 or 6 horizontal metal strips attached to them at around 1" intervals. Look at item 12 in Sawgunner's post. Compressing the vertical metal strips causes them to bow out in the middle, which increases the lumbar support. If you have them in your car and they are not working, it is because the drive motor is not working, or the drive cable is stripped.

The seat can be disassembled, but there are two risks. First of all, if you have side airbags ther is an airbag unit in your seat back. These are explosive and must be properly disabled. Second, getting the seat put back together so ther are no wrinkles or bumps in the leather is very tricky. Not that it can't be done, but it may take some trial and error to do it.

What problem are you having with the lumbar system?

You people are great, thanks!
I can feel the lumbar support mechanism moving up and down, but it doesn't "inflate" (like it would if it were a pillow) anymore. Since I didn't know how it all worked I figured it was like the air pillows in some cars. hmmmmm.........it would be great to have it working again with my bad back. We bought the car new, has 136k on it now. Since it wasn't worth much as trade on a new one I just kept it for a spare car.

I'll call the two vertical metal strips held together with 5 or 6 horizontal metal strips a cage. There are two motors and two drive cables. One set pulls the top of the cage toward the bottom, causing the cage to bow out in the center. The other set moves the cage assembly up and down in the seat on vertical rails. It sounds like motor and cable that move the cage up and down are working, and the ones that bow the cage in the middle and allow it to return to a flat condition are not.

Are you the only driver? Do you want the system to be adjustable, or just to leave it set at one position? The reason I ask is if you don't need the system to be adjustable you could take the seat apart and lock the cage in the setting you want (with nylon cable straps). That would be less expensive than replacing the lumbar system.

That sounds like a workable solution. I'm a bit nervous about disassembly because of the airbag thing, though.

I don't blame you. I have participated in air bag deployment testing and they scare me. Let me know if you want to try it and I will tell you what the factory service manual says to do to disable the airbag. It will be up to you to decide whether or not you can do this safely.

Yes, if I had the factory manual I would probably give it a try. I'm pretty good at that sort of thing if I have the proper direction. Thanks again. I am enjoying exploring this site.

i pulled this info for you out of another thread this info was provided by 2kg4u it will help you get the seat out safely without bag deployment

If you work on your seat, you must disable the airbag system, and this is not a matter of disconnecting the battery. There is a fuse you have to pull in the fuse box under the rear seat, and you have to disconnect 4 yellow hard shell electical connectors that have safety locks. One is under the driver side knee bolster (plastic panel in front of your knees) and is close to and to the right of the steering column. The second connector is under the passenger knee bolster, a little to the right of the center of the panel. The third connector is below the driver seat, and the fourth beneath the passenger seat.

If you are going to pull your seat cushion or the seat back apart, I recommend you pull the seat out of the car. It is actually the easiest part of the job, and makes working on the seat components much easier.

The seat cushion is held to the seat frame by two nuts under the front edge. Remove those, lift the front of the cushion and it will come free. Clearly mark each side of each wire connector you disconnect to make sure you know where they connect back. The leather seat cover is held on by plastic U channels that hook to the seat plastic foundation. Once you get to this point you will see how to get it apart. When you put it back together, make sure you line up the velcro strips, and push down on them as you are putting the cover back on. If you don't do that the seat cushion won't have the proper profile when you put it back together.

The seat back is a little more tricky. Start with the zippers and everything is pretty straight forward from there. The tricky part is getting the leather cover back on. It is basically a bag that fits over the seat frame, and is a very tight fit. Take your time. It also helps to heat the leather cover up before you install it.

Don’t know what year you have, but GM issued a TSB on owner complaints of stiff Lumbar. I think it applies for ’00 to ’02 models IIRC.
Basically they sell a replacement spring you can install to make it softer.
It was very easy when I changed mine. Just had to unzip the seat back to access everything. Per GM procedure on this, there was no need to mess with air bag or remove seat.

Thanks a lot. Mine is an 01 SSEi.

there, I fixed it
 

Not bad at all. I unzipped the seat back, pulled the velcro loose and removed the cardboard back liner. Lo and behold, there is the lumbar mechanism. A spring was unhooked, further investigation showed that a pin that holds the mechanism in place was gone due to the fact that a little piece of the cheap plastic frame that serves as the pin mount had broken. Hmmmmm........So I undid the passenger seat to see how it was all supposed to go together. No problem. Pontiac used a cut off 8 penny nail as the pin (seriously, this car had never been touched). If it's good enough for them it's good enough for me. I cut off a nail, inserted it through the hole in the mechanism and used stainless safety wire to secure it since the cheap plastic mount was broken. Re-attached all the springs and tested. Works perfect!
Many thanks to the kind folks here who advised me.

That's great. Like I told you, the lumbar mechanism is just a few strips of metal held to a frame, not an inflatable bag. I'm glad it was easy to get at for you, and the fix was staring you in the face once you got there.

I'll bet that worked out better than you thought it would.

Yes, it took a grand total of about 15 minutes. The lumbar mechanism is quite a clever arrangement, much better than the inflatable bags in my opinion. I had to replace those in my 87 Corvette, no fun at all.

If you disconnect the battery the air bag will be disabled. There is a yellow connector under the seat this is the SRS connection un hook that. Be careful with the seat even though it is out