arm rests

[silvergoat32]

Hi:

I'm new here so forgive me if this has been asked before. I own a 1991 535i with 140,000 miles on it. Found it on a lot in Billings, MT about a year ago and have been slowly repairing many years of wear. It's in pretty good shape, but does show its age. Question: Does anyone know how to fix a broken drivers side armrest? It was in the trunk when I bought the car! Seems intact, but is non-functional and will not go back on the seat. Any and all suggestions welcome. Thanks.

[shogun]

Well, depends on what is broken. But there are not many things people here cannot fix. Have a look at it and think how you could repair it.
Maybe just the pin is broken which stops the armrest in a certain position. That is easy to do with a screw and nuts.

[Kalevera]

With my first set of seats: the driver's armrest arrived sitting in the back seat (I bought the car sight unseen -- oops). Probably...5 months later...when I actually got around to looking at it, I determined that the metal between the place where it mounts on the seatback frame and the mounting point on the rest itself had been stressed to the point of breaking (fat fisted previous owner?!). My fix was to remove the remaining bit of the mount (still on the seat frame), drill a hole through it and the arm rest mount point, and thread a machine screw through it. It looked like pot steel, so I probably could've welded it, but it was evident that someone had attempted to fix it with such a method in the past and failed.

The mount may have physically pulled out of the seat frame, as well. I can't remember if there's one or two bolts/nuts holding it to the frame, but there's no doubt that they could've become loose/stripped/worn through the frame itself.

What I didn't realize, at the time of performing this repair, was that the seat itself was assed up. The cushions were worn more on one side versus the other, and I couldn't believe the difference when I ultimately replaced both seats with new (free!) ones.

best, whit