[jack.sitner30]

I haven't posted to any of the forums in a while but I wanted to bring up an issue that I caused myself... whoops.
The other day I decided that it was time to perform a full interior restore and for that I removed the seats so that I could get to crevices that have never been cleaned. It was completely obvious that the seats had never been taken out before.

Everything was going great and the RAV looked totally empty when it had no seats or center console in it. I steam cleaned all the carpet, vacuumed, cleaned, etc. When I went to put the seats back in, the bolts did not like to go back to where they came from. For the back seats, I have stripped and cross-threaded 5 of the eight bolt holes and in the front there is only 1.

My question to you all is:

A.) Do we know what size the bolts are that hold the seats in place?
B.) How can I go about fixing the cross-threaded holes?
C.) Is this something that is even fixable at all?

Anyway, hope everyone has a safe and fun 4th of July weekend!

Cheers!

Jack

 

[BMR]

I’d purchase the correct size metric tap and chase the threads. Then be really careful to install the bolts by hand so as not to cross thread them again. If you feel the slightest amount of binding, back them out and try again.

Sorry, but I don’t know the thread size. Take one of the bolts to a good hardware store and they should be able to match the threads.

 

[Caconym]

^What BMR said. Many hardware stores and auto parts stores have a board with nuts and studs that you can thread yours onto and see the thread size.
You probably want to get high-tensile bolts for this application.

 

[NameofUser]

Now you know the importance of starting bokts/nuts by hand to avoid your situation.

Ounce of prevention (starting threads bybhand) worth a pound of cure (thread taps).

 

[Bigphil555]

plus 1 for what @BMR says

 

[Elle_Rav4]

I had some problems with the rear seat bolts/bolt holes right after I first purchased my Rav4 in mid-2018. Granted said problems might have been due to not using a good technique for installing the four bolts per seat.

I am pretty sure I used an m10 x 1.25 tap to clean up the bolt holes. Many (maybe all?) Toyota models use the latter size for the seat bolts. I also picked up a bunch of seat bolts from the salvage yard from some scrapped Rav4.1s. One thing I noticed is that it's best if I do not have an elbow or arm resting on the seat when I am lining up the bolts with the holes and screwing the bolts in. Because then I am working against my own weight, and this is quite noticeable. I partly install all four bolts for each seat and then torque them down.

 

[jack.sitner30]

Thank you all for the advice!
I will keep everyone updated once I purchase the new bolts so that I can tell everyone what the exact sizes are.

Jack