Question: head rests

Hi All,
I was wondering how to remove the headrests in my '73 roadster. I would like to shorten the rod length so the rests retract all the way into the seat backs. Appreciate all responses.

Paul

This might sound funny, but you just pull up very hard and they come out. Don't whack your nose or your chin while doing it!

You should be able to just push it down to the top of the seat..

You should be able to just pull them off or push them down... HOWEVER, to fully understand this &%#@* rat trap of stupidity, be prepared to remove the cover off the seat back as you may never get them on again. Maybe someone has a nice pic of the internals for you, I dont.
Possibly dribbling a small amount of light oil down the slide will help.
RS

I failed to mention some cheap seat covers I purchased (Canadian Tire) to go on. They have separate head rest "bags". I think a cleaner look is possible if I can retract the head rests fully.

NASpecMGB Wrote:

There's a small spring tab on the bottom of the shaft of the headrest. The idea is that it will slide out of the way when the headrest is forcibly pulled upwards. Most people rarely move the headrest so this clip gets stuck.

With a good pull, it'll either let go or break off. I don't really think it's a big deal if it disappears.

They do push all the way down to the seats. This is a thread that has been brought up often from time to time.

I had to cut about an inch and a half off the bottom of the shaft in order to get the head rests all the way down. There was a piece in the seat back frame that stoped the head rest from going all the way down. Joe

I used a flat pry bar to loosen my headrests. Once I got them started they pulled out fairly easy. I cleaned up the posts on the headrest and lubed them. Then I put them back in and with a little force they seated all the way down. They are now easier to move up and down.

As Simon said there's a small spring steel "tab" which sticks out from the side of one of the headrest posts. When you push the head rest down into the seat for the first time (after installing new seat covers, for example), the clip will retract as it goes down inside the seatback (it has an angled edge--like a triangle), then will spring out about half an inch from the side of the headrest post at some point. This little protrusion prevents the head rest from being pulled up all the way and entirely removed.

If you yank like crazy you can sometimes bend or break it off and remove the headrest. It's a stupid idea in the first place, but I guess they wanted to prevent owners from driving without headrests. Some headrest posts will already have the little clip removed or broken, which is why some owners say they can remove their head rests.

The "approved" method for doing this is to remove the backrest seat covering entirely, or reach up the back of the seat covering with enormously long arms, then depress the little bugger, and gently slide the headrest up and off. Who in the world would be able to do that?

It "might" be possible to slide something like a thin screwdriver down inside the headrest hole at the top of the seat back and locate the little clip and depress it as someone else pulls the headrest up. I've never managed this trick myself, however. Once you do get the headrests off sometime, I'd remove the clips permananently as they serve no logical purpose except to frustrate.

i removed my headrests completely, too......when I recovered my seats. the small clip is easy to disengage if you have peeled the old cover up to the top of the seat back. I, too, cut an inch and a half off the bottom of the chrome shaft, installed the new headrest cover and reinstalled them so the headrests now rest on the top of the seatback......great look!