2007 Air Nautique 236

[toastie22]

New owner of '07 Air Nautique 236, and have 2 questions:
1. the lean back seat uprights are both jammed in - I'm assuming they're intended to be pulled out if you want? Before I get to heavy handed with them though, thought I should check to see if they're actually intended to come out.
2. The plastic gauge face on the 3 factory ballast gauges are cloudy and make it hard to read the position of the needle - is it possible to polish these plastic faces or otherwise restore their clarity?
Thanks so much for any help.

[NautiqueJeff]

Yes, and yes.

The leanbacks should pull straight up. They can go in facing either direction.

The plastic gauge faces can be polished out with any decent polish. If they are really bad, you might try sanding them first, kind of like what you do with plastic headlights.

[toastie22]

Much appreciated - thanks for that Jeff. I've put WD40 around the base of one of the posts, and silicone spray into the other - hopefully one or other works, otherwise I can unscrew the whole plate and hopefully dismantle it that way.
Re the gauge face, I've found a couple of great videos online for the headlight process, so will give that a go! Thanks.

[Miljack]

I would unscrew the round plates that house the seat back posts and remove the whole assembly. You could then remove each of the plates separately, I would guess that the seat backs may have been pushed down past the curve on one side or both.

[toastie22]

Thanks Miljack - I have unscrewed the port side plates and pulled the lean-back out, with the sockets still attached. They were stubbornly jammed in the tubes of both the sockets but it doesn't look to be related to going past the curve - so after trying a number of different approaches with silicon lubricant, WD40 etc, with no success in pulling the lean-back out, it took brute force with a hammer to get the sockets off the posts, but I can't see any reason for them being stuck. The sockets are lined with some kind of plastic sleeve. I've cleaned them inside the sockets, and cleaned the lean-back posts, but when I try to put the lean-back posts back into the sleeve / sockets, they immediately jam about a 1/2 inch in, so it feels like the posts may somehow be swollen. There is a cap at the base of the posts that looks to be corroded - not sure if it's aluminum or stainless, but with the look of it I'd say aluminum, and maybe that cap is swollen, because the lean back simply does not want to fit into the sockets - and that's before the sockets are put back into the seat base fitting. Has anyone else experienced this issue? photos attached.