I love my son. I love my son. I love my....

Let me start by saying that I love my son.

Let me finish by saying that I want to kill him right now.

The story:

'95 M3. Love the car. He's screwing around inside with the passenger seat recline- electric and mechanical release about 6 months ago. All of a sudden, the seat won't stay back. The quick-recline function that allows kids to get into and out of the back seat won't keep it in the rear position. So 6 months later, this morning, I decide to investigate, thinking it'll be the cable. It was not. The pin that holds the latch which keeps the seat in the rear position, is not there. The electrical recline gearbox has a cast boss which holds the pin and locates the motor/gearbox assembly. Broke.

Let's find a more expensive way to break a freakin' seat. Dammit.

Any ideas? eBay is coming up dry with seat recline gearboxes and new is going to be about $500.

JB weld? I think those aluminum brazing rods you can buy are good for pot metal too.

Is it an M3 specific part? There are tons of E36's in junkyards now.

Looks like the gearbox is integral (pressed/riveted) to the seat frame. Grrr. I don't have faith that JB will hold, but hopefully I can find the pin and give it a shot.

Clynn- I don't think so... just that the integral fram/gearbox thing throws a painful wrench in the mix. These aren't vaders, so they don't have M3 specific markings on them.

Don't be angry at him, the thing obviously wasn't well designed if it didn't survive somebody messing with the controls for a bit. I think every automotive QA department should have a swarm of kids for final stress-testing of all interior pieces

Yeah, it probably wasn't his fault. Found the steel threaded ferrule under the front floormat. Looks like it was pressed in to the aluminum housing. Perfect if a bolt head could fit between the moving parts, but to make a long story short, cut the head off a bolt, slitted it to make a flathead screwdriver fit, epoxied the ferrule back into place (even with most of the housing broken), screwed the "bolt" in, and now it's operational. This side will not be the preferred entry/egress side from here on out.

Love the guy, it was just on his watch that it broke. Didn't give him too much guff about it. He helped me fix it though. Alls well that ends well. Just a little venting.

When I was a kid, I threw a little white rock off our raised deck thinking (or not) that it would hit the grass.

It didnt. It landed in the middle of the windshield of dads white 70's big block Mercury Marauder. Shattered it!

When I get po'ed at my kids, I just recall the countless families who's kids are missing and whatever it was goes away!

Sorry it's no help with your seat though!

I see a clear opportunity here / make the kid pay for new aftermarket race seats .

When I was 4 or 5, I "helped" my dad fill his 50 Chevy up with gas. Only I used sand from my sandbox in my mom's watering can.

I'm still not sure how he restrained himself from murder.

My nephew decided he wanted to write on my sisters minivan....... With a rock. Man was she mad lol

nepa03focus wrote: My nephew decided he wanted to write on my sisters minivan....... With a rock. Man was she mad lol

Oh, this wasn't a complaint about my daughter. She carved a picture on the back panel of my freshly painted mg midget (with back breaking pain in 100 degree Sacramento heat by me) of herself. I might have mistaken it for someone else, but the one letter she knew at the time was the first letter of her first name. I believe her "brush" was a nail. Autographed the picture with a big H. Don't know if I can ever repaint it now. It's part of the car.

Karl La Follette wrote: I see a clear opportunity here / make the kid pay for new aftermarket race seats .

That was certainly a consideration after pricing used seats.

Was there a girlfriend involved?

My infant son (at the time) found a rusty old bolt somewhere and proceeded to scratch the heck out of my brand new (also at the time) CRX Si's rear bumper. He had basically just learned to stand up and was using the bumper as support. When I got there he was doing the big "I just learned to stand up by myself" grin and it was so darn cute. I didn't know what to do, laugh or cry.......... I cried.

I just found my daughter (1 1/2) trying to write on the 964 with chalk.... I had to remind myself that I was just a little bit older when I washed my dad's brand new escort... with steel wool.

First day with our new to us black Suburban my 2 year old twins did some drawings on the side with rocks.A few years later I was working on a little rust on the rocker of my Miata.I went inside for something and when I came out my 4 year old son was wire brushing the quarter panel

Not car related;

But my (at the time) 4 year old nephew loved to ride on my shoulders, as I am good bit taller than everyone in the family. We are waiting in line at Pei Wei when his Dad sternly tells me he needs to speak with is son right now. They step off to the side and when they return my nephew is teary-eyed and telling me he is sorry. I look at the Dad and ask why.

Apparently he had been slowly long trails of spit onto my head while he was up there, and was now in time out.

I always wondered how I would react to such things, and as it turnred out I had to face away to keep from cracking up.

I'll never forget the day the kids decorated my truck for me with driveway chalk. They were so proud of their creation, they came and got me to show me. Still don't know what was worse, trying to get it and the scratches off the paint, tires, and plastic cladding or the fact that I had to drive around with it that way for a couple of days because I couldn't destroy their artwork.

One day while I'm under the E34 with the differential being held up with my knee while I wrestled with it. My 2 year old got ahold of my impact wrench, which had two extensions and a U-joint on it. The noise of the thing slamming into the paint as he started to "work" on the car is seared in my brain. He couldn't hear me over the sound, and by the time I got free one of the rear doors was totally trashed.

The worst part was when I showed him what he did, he wept like someone had killed his dog and then I'm the one comforting HIM, the little bastard. :)

My nephew colored the driver seat of my brother in laws then-new A6 with a sharpie (on light grey leather), drew on the side of my sister's then-new Navigator with a rock, and broke off my windshield washer stalk on my then-new TJ Wrangler. Oh, and this all occurred over the course of one month in the summer of 2005.

The moral of the story here is, at least with the last few posts is...........young children and cars don't go together well.

my daughter likes to help me in the shop. she even has her own tools at 4 years old. theyre all plastic or rubber coated....

also, she helped us by "fixing" the wheel on my wifes legacy gt. she filled it entirely with pea gravel between the rotor, spindle, and wheel through the spokes.

i shoulda been watching her better......

You guys ever see the soccer mom SUV or minivan or Volvo/Taurus wagon that looks almost brand new except for the back seat passenger window full of faded, half-peeled kiddy stickers so you can barely see out of it?

Why do parents allow that?

And to the OP, sorry about derailing your otherwise good thread.

My dad (the shiny happy person) has not been seen since 2008 for a few hours at Xmas, and much much more before that. Plenty of backstory that would fill in the gaps but let's just say the shiny happy person isn't around.

Apparently a Scion friend met him at a car show a few weeks ago (he actually remembered I have an xB also). Even after all this time what does he say to my friend? "Ask him about the time he threw up all over my Roadrunner's white interior". It was a '71 he bought when it was new, so it's probably been 40-some years now.