Captain's Chair Armrest Repair

Make it comfortable inside
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Millennial Falcon
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Captain's Chair Armrest Repair

Post by Millennial Falcon »

So, the four screws that hold the passenger armrest together have all "pulled through" and broken the plastic middle piece of my passenger seat. The FlexSteal cable still works and is fine. Please see the attached images if my explanation didn't make it clear enough.

Any ideas on the best way to repair this? Does anyone have a spare armrest from a 1994 they could sell? I'm considering just... ShoeGoo gluing the piece to the leather of the padded bottom and zip tying it in place while it cures?
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Last edited by Millennial Falcon on Tue Sep 17, 2019 11:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Millennial Falcon
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Re: Captain's Chair Armrest Repair??

Post by Millennial Falcon »

Well, nobody replied... so here's what I did! Total cost to repair was under $8 at Home Depot:

I decided since the bottom was blown out of all four screw-holes on the plastic piece, the easiest thing to do would be to figure out how to put four "posts" into those holes and just glue the thing to the posts. I'll let you know how my repair holds up, and post here if it ever fails or if I need to re-attack it.

To do this repair, I removed the four original screws that went into the wood-beam of the arm, and replaced them with some longer screws that I put sleeves on.
Screws.jpg
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For the glue, I chose E6000 industrial adhesive, because it cures hard but not brittle. so, it will have some give... and can easily be removed later if I need to take it apart. I considered a two-part epoxy... but I felt the E6000 was the right middle-ground adhesive.

I applied a light bead of the E6000 around the rim of the black plastic piece to securely stick it to the leather I was going to be putting it down on, and then zip tied the trim in place while it cures. Then I carefully went around the trim with an alcohol swab on the outside, to removes any glue that was squeezed out and to smooth the bead.

I filled the four post-holes with E6000 as well, and that should give the thing the stability it requires. The glue cured to be firm and secure, yet gummy enough I could rip it off if needed at some point in the future. The post holes leaked a little onto the wood when filled, so it took a second-fill to get them topped off after a few minutes. There's some extraneous glue inside now, but nobody will ever see it and I'm OK with it.
ZipTied.jpg
ZipTied.jpg (2.3 MiB) Viewed 8170 times
My tools/parts list was:
  • a 4-pack of #10 x 1.5" wood screws
  • Phillips Screwdriver
  • Zip Ties
PartsList.png
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MarkP
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Re: Captain's Chair Armrest Repair

Post by MarkP »

Nice fix. Funny you posted this now--I just repaired our armrests a couple of days ago and they were broken in the same way as yours. I took a different angle and got longer screws that i put through wide washers, kind of like this:

Image

Then screwed down through each hole and let the washer press the the black plastic piece down. Total cost was about $1 for the washers (used existing screws) and it seems to be pretty sturdy. In all it took about 10 minutes of work.
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Millennial Falcon
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Re: Captain's Chair Armrest Repair

Post by Millennial Falcon »

MarkP wrote:
Wed Sep 18, 2019 7:28 am
Nice fix. Funny you posted this now--I just repaired our armrests a couple of days ago and they were broken in the same way as yours. I took a different angle and got longer screws that i put through wide washers. Then screwed down through each hole and let the washer press the the black plastic piece down. Total cost was about $1 for the washers (used existing screws) and it seems to be pretty sturdy. In all it took about 10 minutes of work.
Yup, I definitely over-engineered this and overlooked your much more simple fix. darnit.
Misplaced Vermonter
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Re: Captain's Chair Armrest Repair

Post by Misplaced Vermonter »

I’m getting ready to tackle the same problem on passenger door with both armrests. Problem is they have been loose for so long we haven’t been too careful and have cracked the plastic. Maybe I’ll try a combination approach of using epoxy to repair the plastic then long screws with washers....
silvertrooper
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Re: Captain's Chair Armrest Repair

Post by silvertrooper »

Dumb question: what does the cable do? I didn't even know there was a cable in there. :D :o
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skater
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Re: Captain's Chair Armrest Repair

Post by skater »

silvertrooper wrote:
Thu Mar 05, 2020 2:20 pm
Dumb question: what does the cable do? I didn't even know there was a cable in there. :D :o
It releases the catch for swiveling or adjusting the angle of the back.
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silvertrooper
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Re: Captain's Chair Armrest Repair

Post by silvertrooper »

OMG, of course it does. Duh. I couldn't picture what it connected to, but I've got it now. Thanks!
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