Heated seats retro install

[sal_park]

Hi,

I've been look to install heated front seats in my E34 for a while now and I'm finally starting to do it, just in time for winter

After finding this post on doing the same thing on an E38, and after tim eh? confirming that there is a good chance of a power loom already being there under the seat I though I'd give it go.
(edit: I've now confirmed power for the seats in my car )

I found a retro fit kit from WAECO for ~60 GBP. I've now received this kit and it seem quite good quality (not tried it yet & no affiliation)



Looking at the kit it assumes there is no switched live circuit powerful enough for the heating elements (max 4A each) so has a relay to supply this. Looking at the bentley it seems the only power to the seats (30A, F16 1 circuit for both front seats) is already switched with the ignition so I don't need to relay in the kit.

(Yes the little switches *do* switch the full power to the heated seats [shudders] )


Right, now I've got the seat out and made it safe it's time to start taking it apart.


Before we start, it's worth noting that my seats are sport seats which appear to be a different make up from the normal ones - all will become clear soon .

All the pictures below are my passenger seat (it's a right hand drive car btw).

1. Remove the seat back

The seat back is secured with two screws at the bottom. The screw heads are covered in little plastic caps which can just be levered off with a screwdriver. Below is the seat with these caps removed:


screw close up:


Once these screws are remove you can gentle pull the seat back backwards and outwards - the leather may stick a little, but constant gentle pressure will get it free:


Now the bottom of the back is free the whole back can now be pushed up to completely remove it from the seat:



(tear down continues here in a reply later in this thread - image # upload limit reached)

[tim eh?]

good luck! i'm almost finished... everything you need to know is on that link for the e38(?) you posted. i had to repair the stitching too - it took me a while to find matching thread... and to stitch...

the pads just work on 12v you could hook them up to any switched circuit... the motors for moving the seat are on unswitched circuits but if you hook your pads up to those you'll kill the battery if you leave them on by mistake.

just so you don't do what i did, there is one tab (the ones under the seat you have to bend back to remove the leather cover) that i missed and the leather tore really easily when i first went to pull it off - the tab i missed was behind the hole that will be there after you remove the control box for the switches on the side towards the door - it's not bad you'll see but it could have been disastrous - don't miss any tabs!


here's a photo of the tear it's hard to see it's not so bad actually, testing the pad (the fabric seat is one of the ones i replaced) and a preview of what i did underneath - i had to either cut the old pad or undo all the stitching from the old pad but i don't think you'll have that problem if your seats never had heat - major headache for me but i had more problems... hope it works... for both of us!

[gmannino]

Thanks for posting, this is an upgrade I want to do when restoring my leather seats.

[tim eh?]

well... the seat is in and my butt's still warm from testing the seat... works A1++++ - i'll get some more pics up and try to write it up a bit... it works great looks ok but i missed a step (damn - i'll get back there one day). my main stumbling block was how to get the pad past the bar that holds the seams down that run across the width of the seat... i'm not sure how it will work on yours ... mine had the original pads sewn in it was such a pain. let me know if you're in a hurry or if you have any questions i was just right there!

it helps to soften the leather with warm water. also makes it easier to tear...

errr... yeah tiewraps work greeat just don't forget to attach the side bars too, or the middle section will bunch up like mine ... man i'm pissed i forgot that step but the leather was already stretched it was never going to be perfect anyway... it's all nicely stiched now tho and i managed to hide the tear i made!

cost me $3.49 for the thread.
edit- ...and a dollar for the tiewraps...

[Black 535i]

Great work. This is a good idea. I had mine apart last year to repair a tear in the leather and that is the easiest way to reinstall - using zipties. Just leave them all loose before tightening to allow for slack and stretching in weird areas. When all are installed, tighten seat base ones first and work towards the outer edges. Looks good and good luck.

[tim eh?]

Great work. This is a good idea. I had mine apart last year to repair a tear in the leather and that is the easiest way to reinstall - using zipties. Just leave them all loose before tightening to allow for slack and stretching in weird areas. When all are installed, tighten seat base ones first and work towards the outer edges. Looks good and good luck.

thankyou -i err yeah... i mean zipties... if i were to grade myself on this i'd give me a definite 'C' for the tear and forgetting the side bars but it's not the first time i've been happy with a 'C'... i'm mostly glad to have it stitched and the heat working - last winter was brutal i'd sit and stare at the switch when i was at stop lights

looking forward to seeing an 'A' from you guys...

[sal_park]

so now the back is off this is what we are left with:



2. Unhook leather seat back

Now we need to bend back some of the tabs that hold the leather on. These are quite easy to snag your hand on so be careful !
I used 2 screw drivers - a big one (pictured) to leaver them out and a small one to get them started:



It's very easy to slip so at this point I made sure the seat was not going anywhere:



Now as I said above you only need to remove some of the tabs - in this case it's the top row and the bottom row - not the sides...well I did remove them first, just to see what would happen....

[sal_park]

3. Remove the hog rings

Now we need to remove these rings, as discussed here in steps 17 & 18. There's about 20 of them and I bent them with two pliers to remove them. To make sure I don't miss any when I put them all back I've marked where each one as been removed with tippex, but I may be taking it a bit far

4 hog rings:


Now with all the rings removed:
(you can see the tippex marks)


Now we can remove the centre back - pull the top up:


and push the bottom forward:


and it should then pop out:

[sal_park]

4. Remove the leather.

Now we have the centre back free from the rest of the seat:


If we turn this over we can take the leather off of the foam. The staples come out really easily by hand:


Leaving it like this:


If we then turn it over we can see...more hog rings:


Close up:

[sal_park]

So after a few minutes all the hogs rings are now remove from the foam:
(I switched to snipping them first with some wire cutters at this point)



And the back of the leather:



Now we can start to line up the back heating element. The seat and the back are a different shape and I started by trying to fit the bottom element on the back . Anyway the size for the back element is pretty perfect for the seat, I've just trimmer about 10mm off the top and bottom so I can avoid 2 of the stitching lines as they are quite deep and I don't want to bend the element any more than I have to. As far as I can see the only restriction I can see is don't cut the cable
For the middle stitch line I've marked out where the holes need to go:




Now we need to start adding the tie wraps. It's very important to have these all round the same way and uniform as it makes putting the leather back much easier: