DIY chair gas lift repair

In detail: DIY chair gas lift repair from a real master for the site my.housecope.com.

Unlike cabinet furniture, an armchair is subject to increased wear and tear, since, in addition to daily use, it contains mechanical, and most importantly, hydraulic parts.

So why, for one owner, the chair broke down after half a year, while for the other it serves for years without a single breakdown? This circumstance does not always depend on the quality of a particular model. First of all, of course, you need to pay attention to the weight of the user, as well as care during operation. In any case, most modern chairs are designed for a weight of up to 120 kilograms, and manufacturers, in turn, give a guarantee for any breakdown from 12 to 18 months.

But if your chair breaks down and the warranty period has already passed, then, having sufficient dexterity, you can easily repair the computer chair yourself. However, we recommend that you turn to professionals in organizations specializing in this.

If your computer chair lowers itself when you sit down, and rises when you get off it, while the period of lowering or lifting can vary from a few seconds to a day, this is a clear sign of gas escaping from the gas cartridge. Gas lifts cannot be repaired, as their disassembly is life-threatening.

In this situation, you can fix the chair in the required position with improvised means or replace the gas cartridge with a new one. The cost of the gas cartridge is not great, and you can buy it at any specialized store.

So, you have made the decision to replace the gas cartridge yourself.

Armchair
Curly screwdriver
Rubber hammer
Metal drift
New gas cartridge (appropriate length and diameter)
Vise (for more convenience)

Video (click to play).

If you carry out repairs during the cold time of the day, then the liquid in the gas lift may freeze, in this state it is strictly forbidden to use it. Wait for the new gas cartridge to warm up to room temperature (this will require leaving it up to 24 hours).
The first step is to unscrew the seat from the swing mechanism or piastra with a curly screwdriver. Turn the chair over, mark the face of the rocking mechanism, unscrew the 4 screws holding the chair seat to the rocking mechanism, and set the chair body aside.
Move the protective casing, take the gas cartridge in your left hand with the swing mechanism downward and with medium-force blows start tapping the swing mechanism at the base of the gas cartridge, make sure that you do not bend the swing mechanism. If it was not possible to knock down the swing mechanism, try to clamp the base of the gas cartridge in a vice and turn the swing mechanism.
After you have removed the swing mechanism, you need to knock the gas cartridge out of the crosspiece, for this, turn the crosspiece upside down with the rollers and, using a metal drift, knock the gas cartridge out of the conical base of the crosspiece with accurate blows. Make sure that you do not damage the front side of the chrome-plated cross-piece and the stiffening ribs of the plastic cross-piece.
The spider is disconnected! The difficult task is behind, now you need to assemble the chair, first screw the swing mechanism to the back seat, pay attention to the correspondence of the front side of the seat with the front side of the swing mechanism.
Now place the crosspiece with the wheels on the floor, remove the transport cap from the gas cartridge (you should see the button; attention! Pressing the gas cartridge button in your hands is dangerous), insert a new gas cartridge, make sure that the diameter of the gas cartridge matches the crosspiece, put on the protective cover and slide the seat body onto the rocking mechanism, if everything is in order, press your hands on the body of the chair, check all the elements again. You can sit on a chair and check the operation of the gas lift.

Attention! If you have a problem with the gas cartridge right after assembling a new seat, you may have come across a defective gas lift or rocking mechanism.But before contacting the dealer to replace parts, check if the button at the gas lift is not fixed by the lever from the swing mechanism.

Attention! If the gas lift does not respond to pressing the lever, check: - the swing mechanism or piastra is correctly attached, - the lever for pressing the gas lift button is not bent. In other cases, the replacement of the gas cartridge will be required.

- Serviceable gas lift;
- crosshead screwdriver;
- rubber or metal hammer;
- vice;
- annular drift.

A common cause of gas lift breakdowns is that you do not sit correctly on the chair, that is, do not distribute the weight over the entire area of the seat, but do the main load on its front edge.

Manufacturers of office furniture prohibit using Gaslift at temperatures below +5 degrees. At lower temperatures, the liquid in it freezes, and under load it immediately breaks. If you buy a chair in the cold season, then you can start assembling it only 24 hours after its components are in a warm room.

A modern office chair is a functional and comfortable piece of furniture equipped with a rather complex mechanism that sooner or later fails. In such a situation, there are three options for the development of events: buy a new one, give it to a specialized workshop, or make an office chair repair with your own hands.

As practice has shown, it is quite possible to perform such work on your own. The only thing that is required of the wizard is to strictly follow the sequence of actions and follow the instructions that will be given in this publication.

Today, there are three types of chairs on the office furniture market:

For the leader
Such a piece of furniture usually has the maximum possibilities: a five-beam steel crosspiece; synchromechanism (a device that makes the seat and backrest repeat the movements of the owner); mechanisms for adjusting the backrest resistance, seat depth, negative tilt, etc.
For staff
Furniture of this type has more modest characteristics and functionality. Most of the varieties are lightweight (providing high mobility), equipped with mechanisms for adjusting the height of the seat, armrests, backrest angle.
For visitors
Office chairs of this modification are simply beautiful, stable and comfortable furniture, devoid of any functionality. Often they do not even have a rotation mechanism and are produced on four legs, instead of one supporting leg with a crosspiece on wheels.

Despite the variability of designs and functional content, almost all chairs consist of one set of elements:

Five-beam cross (base). This part is made of metal or plastic. The first option is of higher quality and more expensive
Rollers... Just like the cross, the castors can be made of metal or plastic. However, the mount and internal hinge of any roller is metal.
Pneumatic cartridge (gas lift). The part serves as a chair leg and is responsible for its "elasticity"
Swing mechanism contributes to the axial deflection of the chair and its fixation in one position. On expensive models, a mechanism with an offset axis is installed, which provides the most smooth swing
Piastra... This element is a metal platform with a lever. Serves to change the height of the seat relative to the cross
Permanent contact - an element that connects the back with the seat and is responsible for changing its position

Most office chair models have armrests. In cheap models, these elements are made of plastic; in more expensive ones - from anodized or stainless steel.

As noted above, an office chair is a rather complex device and any of its structural elements can fail.

The problem of this element may be destruction at the junction of the rays.The material from which the cross is made is important here.

As a rule, the base is a hollow structure, inside of which you can insert a polypropylene pipe of a suitable size and cross-section. It, in turn, must be rigidly fixed to the base and the damaged beam.

Plastic parts cannot be spliced with glue or a soldering iron. due to heavy loads on the legs. There is no point in restoring the integrity of this element. The best option would be to completely replace the damaged structure with a glass-filled polyamide base.

In order to dismantle the cross-piece of an office chair, you need:

Remove rollers

Note! In case of critical damage or destruction, it is impossible to knock the gas lift out of the base. In this case, pull the slave cylinder with a seal and bearing out of the "glass".The process technology and the dismantling device are shown in the video:

It is quite simple to repair the gas lift yourself, you just need to follow the instructions:

The seat can be removed simply, you need to unscrew the 4 bolts one by one with a Phillips screwdriver. Carefully remove it from the mountings without ripping off the threads.

Video (click to play).

Raise the gas lift further from the floor, strong impacts can damage plastic parts, which is why the help of an additional person is sometimes required.

Next, the new part is inserted in place of the old one and screwed onto the same bolts. Knowing how the gas lift works, it is not difficult to mentally imagine its replacement.

Now many people know what to do if the mechanism of the chairs is constantly knocking. Replacing the descending gas appliance does not take long, the standard procedure lasts no more than fifteen minutes. Above, the whole course of work is described how to fix or change the gas lift, in order to feel comfort when you sit down in a chair. Try and do everything right in order not to waste money on a complete replacement of an office chair.

Office chairs are designed to be lightweight, maneuverable and comfortable for extended work in the office or at home

The convenience of a computer chair is expressed in its ergonomic and functional form, it is suitable for people of any body type, height or weight. All this is possible due to the unique ability to adjust the height or level of the backrest to the needs of a particular user, for which the gas lift, built into the structure of each chair, is responsible.

The main symptoms of a gas lift malfunction

However, the same part is also a vulnerable spot, the breakdown of which renders the entire functionality of the seat unusable.

Office chairs are comfortable and functional furniture, but sometimes they require repair

Parts of the computer chair that may need to be replaced or repaired

Office chair layout

If you are faced with a malfunction of the computer chair, you need to find out which part needs repair. One of the most common causes of breakage is the gas lift, as the part that is most susceptible to wear and tear.

Homemade repairs will not restore the full functionality of the office chair

There are two ways to fix a broken gas lift breakage. The first option is to replace the defective part with a new one, no matter which one, from a whole chair or bought in a store.

Chair gas lift or lifting mechanism is designed to adjust the height of the office chair

This method can be considered expensive, since the purchase of a whole gas lift will be required. To make a replacement, you need the following set of tools:

carpentry hammer;
pliers;
a bolt with a diameter of at least 10 mm;
screwdriver or screwdriver;
technical lubrication.

Repair tool kit

We remove the wheels and dismantle the back of the seat, for which we turn the chair over and unscrew the necessary screws from the bottom of the chair. This is necessary for the subsequent convenience of dismantling, you also need to remove the armrests, if any.

Use a Phillips screwdriver to unscrew the 4 bolts

Remove the seat from the chair mechanism

Detached chair mechanism

We proceed to dismantle the gas lift

New gas lift to replace the broken one

Putting the cross in place

Assembled chair after renovation

The second method is cheaper, it consists in fixing the gas lift in one position. However, this method eliminates the possibility of adjusting the height of the chair, but if you need the same height, it is quite suitable. You will need:

screwdriver;
pipe, rubber hose, or a set of washers, depending on what you have at hand;
a rag to remove traces of oil.

Before starting the repair, it is important to make sure that there is no gas in the gas lift and that the gas chamber has free movement up and down, that is, if the height adjustment lever is loose. Only then follow the instructions.

According to the instructions presented earlier, we remove the chair together with the rocking mechanism, leaving the crosspiece.

We knock down the crosspiece from the chair with a mallet, you need to hit as close to the middle as possible, alternately from different sides of the pneumatic cartridge

We turn it up and in the center we see the latch, remove it, and then take out the washers covered with oil. Having done this, you can pull out the outer casing, from which the lifting rod sticks out, on which the rubber damper, thrust washer, bearing and second thrust washer are attached.

Remove the steel latch washer

We remove the glass, and then everything else from the axis - an elastic band, washers and a bearing

Next, we select the supply, which we will fix on the lifting rod, thereby fixing the height of the chair at a certain level. You can use any material from PVC pipes to a hose and washers with nuts, the main thing is that it fits freely on the stem.

We make a tube of the required length, with an inner diameter not less than the diameter of the axis

Measure the required length of the hose and secure it with a damper, then screw on the thrust washer, bearing, second washer and insert the structure back into the gas lift housing.

We put the resulting tube on the axle, and then an elastic band (if it is still alive) and washers with a bearing

Reassemble the gas lift by installing the outer washers and latch. The chair is ready.

We put the cross in place, and complete the assembly by installing the wheels

This is what a metal crosspiece looks like with plastic covers on the bottom.

A separate case is the breakage of the crosspiece. Although this part is made of particularly durable materials, it cannot be damaged, especially if it is made of plastic.

Types of crosspieces: plastic, aluminum, metal with wooden pads

Fortunately, replacing this part with a new one is quite simple. You will need:

To replace, follow the instructions: turn the computer chair upside down, pull the wheels out of the mountings. Take a pair of pliers and use a circular motion to knock out the gas lift, applying pinpoint blows along its edges.

To remove the plastic crosspiece from the gas lift, you need to hold on to the gas lift and tap the crosspiece from above around the attachment point with light hammer blows

After detaching the spider, fit the casters onto the new one and insert the second part of the chair into the hole. You don't have to worry about incompatibilities, as all office chairs have a standardized gas lift mount.

To knock out the gas lift from the cross, it is better to use a spacer of the appropriate size. to prevent blows to the central part of the gas lift

Thus, you can fix any office chair with your own efforts, without the costly purchase of a new chair.

If you sit on a chair, and it seems to fall under you or the chair does not respond to the lifting lever, then there is definitely a problem with the gas lift.this can be easily checked:- Remove the seat from the chair mechanism.- Check if the tip of the lever is pressing against the gas lift valve. (When pressed, the gas lift valve should go down, and the gas lift should move out)Sometimes it happens that the lever is simply bent and cannot press the valve. If this is the case for you, you can simply bend the lever. If this was not found, then you will have to change the gas lift assembly, because it cannot be repaired and can only be replaced as a complete assembly with a new part.Replacing the assembled gas elevator with your own hands is not difficult, besides, repairing a chair will cost 3-10 times cheaper than a new one. How to independently replace the gas lift at an office chair will be discussed in this article.Before starting to repair a chair, it is necessary to find this very gas lift mechanism for the chair. I think there are no problems with this now, I found it via the Internet, drove and bought it. I gave 500 rubles for it, although only 380 rubles were promised. Well, okay, I just wanted to fix this not the first chair with my own hands for a long time.1) Remove the seat from the chair mechanism. To do this, use a Phillips screwdriver to unscrew 4 bolts and remove the seat.2) Now we proceed to dismantle the gas lift. To do this, we apply a few light blows with a hammer on the old gas lift from the side of the cross and the side of the attachment to the seat.3) We proceed to the installation of a new gas lift, for this it is enough just to put it in the old places, put the chair back, sit on it and that's it.In general, the most difficult thing is to remove the old gas lift, and there is nowhere easier to put a new one.When installing a new gas lift, remember to adjust the chair release lever.Alexander Borisov, SamaraInformation
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Unlike all cabinet furniture, a computer chair is subject to extremely increased wear and tear, because, in addition to daily use, it has mechanical, and most importantly, hydraulic elements. For example, repairing a gas lift of an office chair with your own hands can be done, but first you need to understand the reasons for the breakdown. So for what reason, for one user, the chair broke down after a few months, while for another, it serves for years without the slightest breakdown? We will deal with this in this article.

Much to surprise, this circumstance does not always depend on the reliability of a particular model. First of all, you need to pay attention to the weight of the owner, as well as to care during operation.

Important! Modern armchairs, as a rule, are designed for a weight of no more than 120 kilograms, and the manufacturers themselves, in turn, provide a guarantee for any malfunction from 12 to 18 months.

From this it can be concluded that the reasons for the breakdown can be:

careless handling;
non-observance of weight restrictions;
the warranty period has expired.

But in the event that your chair has broken down, and the warranty period has already expired, then, having sufficient knowledge and dexterity, you can easily repair a computer chair at home.

Important! Since you have taken up the repair of the chair, it makes sense to put things in order at the entire workplace. And since a computer desk is, as a rule, a bunch of wires of papers and little order, let's start with the main thing - remove the wires from the computer under the table. The next step is the countertop:

If your computer chair lowers itself when you sit down, and rises during lifting from it, while the period of lifting or lowering can vary from a couple of seconds to a day, this is a sign that gas has escaped from the gas cartridge.

Important! Gas lifts cannot be repaired in any way, because their disassembly is quite dangerous for human life.

In this situation, you can fix the chair with the help of available tools in the required position, or change the gas cartridge for a new one.

Important! The price of a gas cartridge is not so high, and it can be purchased at absolutely any specialized store.

So, you have made the decision to replace the gas cartridge with your own hands. For this case, you will need:

Armchair;
Curly screwdriver;
Rubber hammer;
Metal drift;
New gas cartridge that will match the length and diameter;
Vise for more comfort.

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In the event that you carry out repairs in a cool time of the day, the liquid in the gas lift may well freeze - it is strictly forbidden to use it. Wait until the new gas cartridge is at room temperature. To achieve this, you will need to leave it on for about 24 hours.

First of all, use a curly screwdriver to unscrew the seat directly from the piastre or the rocking mechanism.
Flip the chair over, mark the front of your rocking unit.
Remove the 4 screws that secure the chair seat directly to the rocking mechanism and then set the chair body aside.
Dismantle the protective casing, take your gas cartridge in a comfortable hand, the swinging block down.
Use medium blows to tap the rocking mechanism at the very base of the cartridge.

Important! Carefully monitor the degree of flexion of the swing mechanism, do not allow it to bend. If you did not succeed in knocking down the block, try to fix the base of the gas cartridge in the clamp and turn it.

After removing the rocking mechanism, knock out the gas cartridge from the crosspiece.
Turn the crosspiece over with the rollers upward and, using a metal drift, knock out the gas cartridge from the tapered base of the crosspiece with precise and accurate blows.

Important! Be sure to look out for damage to the front side of the chrome crosspiece, as well as the stiffeners of the plastic crosspiece.

Thus, you have disconnected the crosspiece. This means that the difficult task is over, now assemble the chair:

Screw the rocking mechanism onto the backrest seat itself and pay attention to the correspondence of the front sides of the seat and this block.
Next, put the crosspiece on the floor with the wheels, dismantle the transport cap from the new gas cartridge.

Important! You should see the button, but under no circumstances press the gas cartridge button in your hands, because it is dangerous.

Install a new gas cartridge and make sure that the diameter of the gas cartridge fully matches the crosspiece.
Slide the protective cover and then the chair body directly onto the rocking mechanism.
In the event that everything is in order, press the body of the chair with your hands, re-check all the elements.

Important! If your chair is not a year or two, then in addition to the structural repair of the gas lift, it also needs aesthetic, replacement of the upholstery. How to do this, learn from our master class - "How to pull a computer chair with your own hands."

Now you can sit on the chair, thereby checking the performance of the new gas lift.

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If you have problems with the gas cartridge immediately after assembling a new seat, it is likely that you have come across a defective gas cartridge. But before you go and complain about the trading organization and demand replacement of the element, check if the button of the gas lift is fixed by a lever from the swing mechanism.
When the gas lift does not respond when the lever is pressed, check if you have properly secured the piastres or the swing system, if the lever for pressing the gas lift button is not damaged.

In all other cases, it will be necessary to replace the gas cartridge.

Important! If, after reading everything about the repair, you come to the conclusion that, for you personally, it is easier and cheaper to buy a new chair, then do not forget to read the article on how to choose a computer chair.

The work is really for two minutes - you need to remove the crosspiece with the gas lift, use the pedal to push it up to the end and put something on the rod that will prevent it from going down. A piece of rubber hose will work best (it will feel softer on the chair), but it can be replaced with a metal, polypropylene tube, or even a set of washers.

Here is a great video with instructions, I made my chair on it, and everything worked out: