It’s been a while since I wrote anything on my blog and for that I apologise. The lack of writing doesn’t mean that the workshop has been gathering dust, far from it.
Ages ago, a former colleage of mine asked me to look at a Concorde Child Seat, which seemed to be automatically adjusting to it’s maxmimum height setting, in an ‘ejector’ seat style. This kind of action is OK for 007, but no good for a family trip to the seaside.
Child seat repairs are not my usual thing, but since this one was unusable, what did I have to lose? These seats are normally well over £140.00 too, so it seemed like a good idea to have a go.
The Concord Transformer-T features a neat trick in that it can adjust it’s height to suit the growing child, with the touch of a button. This is especially handy when different children share the same seat. Up and down height settings are achieved by a ‘Transformer’ (the toys) style of action, controlled by a gas damped srump strut, similar to that used on hatch back tail gates.
This seat’s gas strut seemed to go to maximum height, without warning, extending seat in an ejector seat style. Time to dig out some tools.
The seat’s cover came off easily, thanks to to some hook and loops around the plastic backing. Lucky as the cover on this seat had some dubious stains.
Once off, several T20 Torx screws removed and a cable operated plunger to a button on a gas strut was revealed. This seemed like a good place to start. Despite the premium price tag, the inner workings of the seat seemed quite flimsy, I assume to minimise weight and to comply with safety standards. The moving headrest, back support and centre arms all moved on a scissor action mechanism, which seemed to working fine.
Disconnecting the cable/ button/ lever involved a T20 Torx screwdriver and 10mm spanner. Once removed, there was good access to the button on the end of the gas strut. It appeared that the button was working just fine and one could manually adjust the size of the seat with a finger. Interesting. Time to inspect the adjustment of the cable and lever mechanism. Luckily, there was adjustment on the cable and lever and after a little fetling, the mechanism was restored.
Price when new: £140.00ish. Cost to repair, 30 minutes tinker time, 1 cuppa and a ginger nut biscuit.
Things have moved on in the child car seat world, my kids just got given more cushions and Autocar magazines to sit as they grew.
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