Lumbar Pump Repair, C5 Corvette
Transcript [Music] [Applause] everybody welcome back to Lyles Friday podcast at C&S Corvette's been away for a couple of weeks because we've been super busy and some of our guys have gone on vacation but I've had a lot of calls come in about one particular thing and I wanted to share with you the way to check your own if you have a problem what I'm talking about is we've been selling our lumbar bags really really really well I've sold about a thousand sets so far and everybody's been very happy with them including me which is awesome but what happens is they plug in their lumbar bags with their new nipples and new everything and they call me and they say Lyle I hear my pump running but nothing's inflating okay so I'm going to tell you what I have told about 46 other people on the phone so I can direct people to this video in the future and not have to explain it every single time here's the deal all four of your lumbar bags are run by one pump that pump then has a line that goes to a switching mechanism with three solenoids that send air either to the side bolsters the upper bag or the lower bag individually but all that air originates from this pump and when I talk people on the phone I ask them can you hear the pump running when you hit the switch on the seat they say yes and I say AHA I know what your problem is so this is located in a vinyl bag zip tied to the underside of the front of your seat so you'll see that vinyl bag it's got two big staples in it try the staples out of it open the bag slide this out it has a wire that goes down with two ends that connect to the bottom of this unplug those so you have this pump in your hand first thing to do is you put I use a battery tester of power probe whatever put 12 volts to this and see if you have air coming out of the nozzle if it's running but there's no air we know what the problem is I'm going to show you how to fix it right now so there's four Torx screws that I've already removed just for the sake of the video in the cap here you take the cap off the motor that leaves this metal plate now this metal plate only goes on one way so make sure you pay attention to where you're taking it off because there's two guideposts and four screw holes all the way around that have to line up so I know how I'm taking it off so I can put it back on now what you see in here is the actual fan that causes air to go through the system this electrical motor spins this white plastic body and in that white plastic body are six moving doors so if you can see this you'll notice this is located off-center it's really narrow down here and really wide open up here as this thing spins centrifugal force forces these little black doors out you see I'm putting these back in right now so they suck in when they get down to the bottom here and they come out because of centrifugal force as they get up here thereby causing a vacuum down here and expelling air at volume up here what happens though is the original lubricant that they used from the factory over time picks up dirt and with age instead of lubricating you can see me scraping this filth off of here instead of being a lubricant for this it causes these doors to get stuck shut so they're not actively sliding out where they're supposed to be and sliding back in so when these guys are stuck and they're all stuck shut you have no air flow going through the answer is very simple carefully take these little black doors and probably using a pair of pliers that I wasn't smart enough to grab before I started this video you just pull these little doors straight up you see if I can get one out here to show you now it doesn't want to cooperate point being with a pair of needle-nose you grab onto this it's really loose you just pull it right up do that with all six then go in with a q-tip and alcohol and clean all of the gunk out of there clean each of these six doors or what we would call veins clean all of those once this entire assembly is clean you're going to put all of those back into their slots put the metal cap back on the way we took it off put this back on four screws plug in the wires again put it back in its bag put the rubber hose back on the end and you most likely 99.9 percent of the time are going to have air flow so instead of having to buy a pump which has been discontinued from somebody like me for ninety five dollars for about twenty minutes worth of work you can fix your own seat pump problem now there is one other thing I want to share with you and this is not uncommon if you notice that once you pull your little veins out and just put them aside put power to this again and see if the white piece here spins okay if this white piece is not spinning when that motors running it means that the shaft that goes into this has stripped out it's got a flat side to a round shaft that locks in to this and if the old lubrication has bound it up sufficiently it can freeze this and snap the plastic at the bottom of this white thing if that's the case then you need to call me and get another motor but if it spins freely do your cleaning put everything back together the way you took it apart put 12 volts to it of guarantee you have a working lumbar pump any questions any comments give me a call at 800-886-5064 so help us help you I look forward to seeing you again next week I've got some exciting announcements coming up about some new stuff I can't wait to share with you but that's gotta wait till next week until then have a great weekend drive safe