I completed the TSB to the T and my passenger seat hasn't made a sound since. It took me three hours from start to finish to complete the fix. You will spend more time tinkering around with other ideas than what it would take to fix it the proven way. JMO.....

 

I hear where your coming from and one weekend I might give it a try. However, my idea for a clamp, maybe a stainless hose clamp, could also work and cut the job down to about 30min or less. It seems like it would do the same thing of securing the bracket and rod together better. Worse case I'll try it and if it doesn't work I'll perform the full TSB repair.

 

Keep us posted on how this works out. I took mine to the dealer and had the TSB repair done and about a month ago the squeak is back.

 

The squeak is from the side-to-side movement of the tube......I think that the rivets is a good fix if done correctly.

Let us know how it turns out.

 

I picked up some stainless steel hose clamps tonight at Ace hardware. I'm not sure how much force they can handle when I start cranking down on them so we'll see. If it's the side to side movement of the tube that titanse05 described then my idea might not work out.

titanse05, how long has it been since you performed the repair?

Stonewall, did the dealer definitely install the pop rivots? I wonder why yours didn't hold up.

I'll keep everyone posted on my experiment.

 

I re-added loctite to the four screws and put a stainless steel clamp on each side of the seat this weekend. Whole job took about 30-45 min. The clamps now nicely support the rod and hold it in the bracket. Time will tell if it holds up, so far though it's creak free.

Note: While adding the loctite I made the mistake of removing both screws from the inner side of syncronizing rod and bracket. Only remove one at time, the rod wants to fall/pull away from the "C" bracket when both are removed. By making this mistake though I was able to see how the poor design is counting on the four tiny screws to hold the rod into the bracket. Not a great a idea with all the force that can be applied by a passenger weight and the short length of the screws. Nissan should have these seats coming from the factory with extra rivots already installed for support, maybe later builds will.

Good Luck!