Removing Headrest from Model Years ‘97 thru ‘04
| 31 December 2003
This pony trick is for anyone who needs to remove the headrest from the front seatback on Mustangs between model years 1997 and 2004. I needed to take them off my ‘99 Cobra but the spring-loaded latch was hidden inside the seat with no apparent access to it. You can’t get the headrest out of the seat if you can’t release the latch. Ford agencies and upholstery shops didn’t know how to do it and the Ford Service Manual was no help either. It’s detailed instruction merely said, “Remove headrest.”
The professionals suggested such things as remove the upholstery first, reach up inside the seatback from the bottom, and (my favorite) “it cant’ be done without cutting the upholstery off the seat.” I didn’t like any of the choices so I set out to develop a procedure on my own.
Since Ford installs the headrest after the seat is upholstered, I figured there must be a way to remove it without destroying the seat in the process. Working from a small line drawing in the service manual (it showed the headrest and its post), I took a stab at where I thought the latch mechanism might be located.
Historically, headrest latches have required a spring to be compressed so the headrest post could move past the latching point. All headrests that I removed in the past had an external release or the latch mechanism was fairly easy to access. Not so on the Mustang but I was sure I could release the latch if I could just find it. After several attempts over a period of about a month, I found the latch while probing inside the seat with a wire coat hanger. I released it and was able to remove the headrest.
Now that the latch had been located and the headrest was out of the way, I could take measurements and fabricate a tool. The tool pictured at right was the result. The procedure shown with the tool is a simple step-by-step process.
Problem solved! I had a way to remove the headrest with little risk of damaging upholstery in the process!
You may be saying, “So what. I’ve never had to remove a headrest in my life.” Maybe so but apparently it’s not an uncommon need. I’ve already shared the procedure with four late model owners who wanted/needed to remove their headrests. It works on any late model where the part number on the headrest post (visible with the headrest raised) begins with the prefix E7EB. So if you’ve been trying to remove the headrest(s) in your car and the part number prefix on the post is E7EB, this tool and procedure should help get the job done.