Manual Seat Height Adjustment

I don't post much in these parts of Rennlist, but you guys are my only hope now I recently got a set of 996 sport seats for my 993. Installed them last night and everything went relatively smooth. Problem I'm having is that the seats are raised all the way up and won't come down. They are manual height/power backrest adjustment and are almost touching the headliner of the car. I can only pull the adjustment lever up, but not down. I checked the system, it's strictly mechanical, no electric motor, etc. You pull the lever and the wire pumps air into the pressure tube which raises the seat. But I couldn't figure out what releases the air. I couldn't get either seat to work. What am I missing here? Thanks for your help!

I found this in the Boxster manual, but I remember clearly pulling and holding the lever, but the seat wouldn't come down. Is there a secret jump or dance I need to do to get it to retract?

Silly question but are you sitting in the seat while doing this? Mine only go up when the lever is pulled and im not in them

check the alignments of the rails.... look under the seat if the engagement pins are symetrical.

I have had my passenger seat get stuck up when someone pulled the height lever then tried to force the seat back toward the dash to load things behind the seat. I had wife sit in the seat and I worked the lever and pulled/firmly wiggled the seat up/down to get it to release. It can get jammed at forced full extension so that it can't get the lever to loosen to the "unlocked" position. Very much like a storm door when you set the catch to hold it open.

Thanks guys! Yes, I tried it while sitting in the seat. My other car has a manual passenger seat and it's based on a similar principle - you pull the lever to get it to come up and once it's all the way up you can push the lever for the seat bottom to come down. That's what I thought was going on here as well. The rails are aligned, I measured them prior to install. Otherwise the holes don't match and it'd be very difficult to move the seat back and forth. Frank, thanks for the visual, I'll give it some more wiggling, tugging, and pushing. I hope that does the trick. Being that it's the same for both seats maybe I haven't been convincing enough. Or they've both gotten damaged somehow during shipping...

I'm not sure about all others but mine will not rise if you have any weight in them. It is easier to get them up by pulling the lever to unlock and letting the gas shock push the unloaded seat up. Then I sit in it and bleed the shock down to the desired height. I think with yours stuck you might need some weight in the seat and while pulling the lever up to unlock, pull the seatback towards the dash firmly and let it back to try and get a little "wiggle" room for the lock to release. Looking at the pic it might even be some kind of over center thing with the linkage in the pivot bar across the back of the frame. I bet during packing/shipping the release was activated and without the seat weight the shock extended smartly to full extension causing the jam.

Update: It worked! Had to really push my weight against the seat but at the end it worked on both seats and they are nice and low now, just the way they should be. Thanks for all your help!

Another satisfied fix.

Excellent!

Just picked up a used 996 targa and had the same problem with my manual seat. Sat on it pulled the height adjuster up and pressed down using my weight and door frame and that fixed it. Thank you guys for the fix.