'97 Eurovan EVC Rear Seat Latch Replacement

[DenverB]

Took care of another little problem and photographed it: the rear bench pull-latch that operates the Bowden cable that lifts the lock that moves the seat forward so you can set it back into the bed position (real nutty design, actually). The original gray handle suffered the common problem of the metal tab snapping off of the flapper, leaving the whole thing useless. But the (black only) replacement piece is $50-$75 depending on your online retailer of choice an the fix is easy and took less time than it took to finish a beer.

(old latch)

You can do this with the seat in the van, but I had mine out to make moving around it easier while cleaning it up. It’s a PITA and you have to pull the spring-loaded pins locking the seat in place up by hand. One at a time, lift the pin all the way up and it should just barely clear the top of the steel track – at that point, push the bottom over to get it slightly out of line with the hole it wants to feed back down into. It should jam it into the ‘up’ position. (Sorry, no photo of this part – I had the seat out days before I started this job) Once you’ve got both of them up, slide the seat forward enough to expose/unlock the two gray seatbelts acting as a safety catch in between the tracks (they match the seatbelt latch that locks your poptop). You’re ready to start (or, again, you could skip this and just have a much tighter workspace).

The new faceplace screws in from the back which a PITA because you can’t access it without removing the plastic storage bucket under the seat – and to do that you need to remove the top half of the seat. And to do that, you take off the four (4) 1/2 inch bolts locking the whole thing down: one on either side of the latch and two on the opposing support beam on the back of the seat.

Get them off, pull the seat up and get the bucket out.

Remove the old faceplate and put in your new one. There shouldn’t be much guesswork as to how tight to re-do the lines, either. If you jammed your pins in the “up” position, drop them back down now. At this point the cable in the Bowden lines should be back to the “closed” position. Thread them back through the corresponding holes in the rear mechanism and use the old kink in the line from the old latch to line it up where it should be. Tighten and test.

If you need to do any more adjustments, it’s actually easier to do on the pin- end.

Put everything back together the reverse of how you took it apart, finish your beer and move on to the next problem (in my case, removing the seat again to clean up the metal and get the whole thing recovered).

I probably don’t even need to make this thread up it's so simple, but my hope is that the casual wrencher looking for some info on how to save some money fixing up their own EVC would find it useful. that, and plenty of bus/vanagon folks (myself included) are curious about the workings of the EVC but haven’t ever got their hands on one.
_________________
-------
'77 Transporter/camper (Bussy - Reef Blue/Pastel White)
'67 bug (Santos - VW Blue)
'84 Vanagon Westfalia (Pink Flamingo - Pastel White/Pink)
'88 Vanagon GL Westfalia (Frankie Says - Wolfram Gray)
'02 Eurovan Weekender (Green Apple)
'95-'03 Eurovan full campers and weekenders (rental fleet)
'84 -'91 Vanagon full campers and weekenders (rental fleet)
'72 Porsche 914 (Greta - RIP)

www.RockyMountainCampervans.com

[RollingDutchman]

I had a lot of problems with my latch as well. When I took it all apart, I discovered that a PO (or someone) had routed one of the cables incorrectly, putting it behind, or in front of, or something of one of the latch plates (sorry forgot the details as it was an easy fix once I figured it out). I don't really have too much of an issue with the whole cable idea since bicycles and motorcycles use the same concept for their brakes (and gears for bicycles) it's just the implementation that is lousy. The original latch is cheaply made and only offers a small cable stroke. And the metal brackets at both ends of each cable flex significantly when the lever is pulled. Anyway, I got mine working decently now but may likely redo the mechanism at some point.

While people have the seat out, I would strongly suggest securing the plastic runners on the bottom of the black seat bracket with flathead screws. This will require drilling and tapping holes but will keep those plastic pieces from sliding around when the glue fails. You might want to do the side and top ones as well, just to be thorough.
_________________
Peter vT
1999 Eurovan
1999 Subaru Outback - ski car
2009 Prius - makes up for crappy van mileage
2013 Catrike tricycle for commuting

[DenverB]

Hey, thanks for the tip/reminder Dutchman! I remember reading somewhere about that (probably in one of your threads) and meant to get at that while I still have the back seat out.

Thinking of doing some cold weather camping/skiing in Steamboat (or maybe down in Crested Butte) this upcoming weekend so it'll be going in by friday.
_________________
-------
'77 Transporter/camper (Bussy - Reef Blue/Pastel White)
'67 bug (Santos - VW Blue)
'84 Vanagon Westfalia (Pink Flamingo - Pastel White/Pink)
'88 Vanagon GL Westfalia (Frankie Says - Wolfram Gray)
'02 Eurovan Weekender (Green Apple)
'95-'03 Eurovan full campers and weekenders (rental fleet)
'84 -'91 Vanagon full campers and weekenders (rental fleet)
'72 Porsche 914 (Greta - RIP)

www.RockyMountainCampervans.com

[Scanupp]

I know it has been a while on this post, but hoping I can still get a response.

DenverB- Thanks so much for this post and pics!! HUGELY HELPFUL!! I have my seat apart and a new latch in hand. The new latch did not come with any screws to mount to the face plate and the existing screws do not seem to fit. There are no threads in the receiving end of the latch. Assume that self-tapping screws is the way to go here??? Would appreciate your help!!

Thx
SC

[Scott97EVC]

Thanks, this was helpful to a noob. One additional question - has anyone put anything on the railed to make sliding them a bit easier once unlatched? Grease? Wax, other?

[scottexo]

These original instructions were very helpful to me, thanks.

Have any of you found a source for replacement cables and housing? Or does one simply use bicycle cables and housings?

Thanks in advance.
_________________
Scott in Stumptown
'97 Eurovan Weenie