Passenger Captains Chair Issue

[knotthead79]

My wife and I recently purchased a 2004 Holiday Rambler Ambassador 38PDQ. Upon a couple of trips in it, we have had a couple issues with the passenger front captains chair.

Following an attempt to back the chair up using the controls to turn the chair around and sit on, the front/back control on the chair stopped working. Looking under the chair I noticed two black wires exposed and wrapped around the base of the chair at the floor. The wires were connected to a cannon plug going into the floor. Also exposed were two crimp connections (black/red wires) that had nothing connected to them.

Performing checks, I determined live/ground wires, then connected the wires back to the correct place. Checked the chair, and only the foot rest goes up and down with no issues, but the front/back no longer works. Checked fuses (Good), and there are no wires that I can see disconnected to the front/back switch.

Questions:
1. Are there other fuses at the front/back switch that I cant see?
2. Can I easily disconnect the chair from the floor to work on the switch more easily?
3. There are no noises coming from the chair when the front/back is pressed. Switch or motor?

Thanks for any help on this.
Ryan K, TX.

[Ernie Ekberg]

The chair is held onto the base by 4 -- 1/2 inch nuts. You can remove those and tilt the chair back. There is a wire tether that is for the swivel action on the base.
Someone may have run the wiring the wrong way when they connected the chair. The chair needs to rotate from straight forward to turn inboard of the coach. The wiring needs to move freely. The wiring may have butt connectors that may have pulled out.

[jacwjames]

My front chairs have a (+) & (-) type connector that provides power to the chair. The wiring harness comes up through the floor behind the chair. We have accidently pulled this loose and all power is lost.

There is also a wiring harness tucked up inside beneath the seat of the chair. It connects the control box to the wires that control the motors. Check up underneath and see if you can see some of individual harnesses have separated. The passenger side seat has a power foot rest besides the forward/back & up/down function.

[knotthead79]

Thanks guys, I will check that once back in the coach. I did do as good an inspection of the remaining wires following connecting the pulled out wires to the butt connectors, but its really weird that the foot rest came back but not the front/back motion.

Guess I'll have to remove the chair and look more closely.

Thanks.

[Jeff753]

I have had the front and back stop working as well.
Mine is intermittent and sometimes the seat will move an inch or so and then stop. Nothing. Try it again later and it moves another inch. I flipped the switch back and forth multiple times and now it works. For now.
The footrest stopped the other day and it now works again. Let me know what you find out.


Jeff
2001 Dynasty Regent tag axle
Cummins 350 8.3 ISC

[danes-on-tour]

I had the passenger chair failing - much like described in the previous posts.

I took the chair off its mount and had a close look. After having checked that the wires was all intact and that all motors was operational (connect power via other leads) it turned out that fault was caused by the panel that you use when operating the chair.

I took the panel out and cleaned it and reconnected it with fresh connections, and that fortunately did the trick. Have had no problems with this since then.

Good luck hunting down the failure

[rmcb]

I am pretty sure those switch modules are GM and available at many auto parts stores in a bubble pack on the "HELP" display. I have noticed that they look identical to the ones in my coach. I have previously taken them apart (on a car) and cleaned/lubed them. They are not sealed and prone to the accumulation of lint/dirt that can interfere with switch contacts.

[Jeff753]

Originally Posted by danes-on-tour

I had the passenger chair failing - much like described in the previous posts.

I took the chair off its mount and had a close look. After having checked that the wires was all intact and that all motors was operational (connect power via other leads) it turned out that fault was caused by the panel that you use when operating the chair.

I took the panel out and cleaned it and reconnected it with fresh connections, and that fortunately did the trick. Have had no problems with this since then.

Good luck hunting down the failure

I was in Elkhart In and found the toggle switch with the 4 way buttons in one of the parts houses. Bought it for $25. Seat has worked fine ever since I bought the part. I think it knows it can be replaced.


Jeff
2001 Dynasty Regent tag axle
Cummins 350 8.3 ISC