‘68 Deville power seat motor question

[Pfotsgarage]

Hello!

I’ve got my power seat setup taken out and disassembled for testing on my 68 DeVille restoration project. The motor runs slowly in both directions and the switch is fine. However, the solenoid gives a “rapid fire” clicking when I run the motor with my 12v power supply as the motor turns (both directions in all positions of the switch.). The cover for the solenoid is off so I can watch what is happening. Any ideas on what might be wrong? The transmission is not hooked up.

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

Sounds like the circuit breaker is "breaking" and "making" the circuit as it is sensing an overload.

The Solenoids are just windings to create a magnetic operation to move the plungers to allow each pair of Cables to operate separately from the others.

The motor should run fast (at some normal speed for a seat motor) with no load.

Bruce.

[V63]

I’d be tempted to verify that same symptoms present with a fully charged battery.

[Glen]

The power supply does not have capacity in amps to do the job.  When the supply is connected the supply can pull in the solenoid but when the motor is connected it pulls the voltage down and the solenoid drops out, which then allows the voltage to rise and cycle repeats.   

[Pfotsgarage]

Thanks guysâ€"I’ll try with a charged 12v battery!

[Pfotsgarage]

Got it to run on the 12v battery! Now to check the transmission...

[Michael Petti]

I just did one of these. Take pictures along the way of disassembly.  In my case the key was to get ALL the old grease off of the parts and the inside of the case. I used spray brake cleaner. Be careful to not let the springs go flying when pulling the case apart. As long as the relay and solenoids work it's a pretty straight forward job. Use lots of white lithium grease.  If your cables are out of the car you might help to hang them up and let oil drip through them. Good luck.