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M-sport seat retrofit (not yet finished)

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Mr Whippy
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Re: M-sport seat retrofit (not yet finished)

Post by Mr Whippy » Mon Apr 27, 2009 9:20 am

Hmmm, the little box was black... I'll have to take the old passenger seat apart and see where all the wires go, and then work out what I need to swap over.

Apart from the second round yellow plug under the passenger seat, whose cable just went to the passenger pre-tensioner, which I swapped, and the little box.... then the multi-plug layout, cable outputs/colours and where they went were identical. Hmmmm...

Dave
04 3.0i, Titanium Silver, 107s, red m-sport interior

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Re: M-sport seat retrofit (not yet finished)

Post by Mr Whippy » Mon Apr 27, 2009 9:42 pm

Right, small update.

Checked my drivers side seat loom (hung under with the seat right forward from the passenger side :) ), and oops, a plug not plugged in.

Plugged in, and that side heats fine now. So the lights stay on with the button pressed. Clearly the loomage/control is the same then, just wiring issues are now preventing the passenger one.

I need to determine what that block/module does on the passenger side, so will be checking that part of the loom closely at the weekend on old and new seats... my worry now is that the facelift seat has a different type of 'load' sensor to my type (or pre-facelift m-sport too), and so what is actually coming from the seat signal wise is different full stop.
That said, considering my lame wiring on the drivers seat (that's two plugs not in on that one since I fitted it) it could just be wired wrong or a plug popped out during refit/moving to extents!


If anyone can confirm the presence or not, of the box under the seat on an Si model, that would be much appreciated. It is about 6-7cm long, 4-5cm wide, and about 1.5cm deep, with more wires coming in (from the seat), than go out to the loom (iirc)

Grrr...

PS, does anyone know if airbag codes come up on general OBD fault code readers or not?

Dave
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Re: M-sport seat retrofit (not yet finished)

Post by Mr Whippy » Thu May 07, 2009 7:12 pm

Update.

Everything is working!

Why you may ask was the passenger side causing issues, well, upon looking the other day down the back at the loom, the back of the seat base felt very damp, almost to the point of being like a wet sponge. Clearly being from a donor car which was stored outside it has got wet. The surface was dry, and upon fitting to my car it has dried out, with the deep damp coming out.

The airbag fault code is probably a fault of either a short or loom plugging/unplugging while the battery was connected (I'll let you all know which when I get it cleared)

Just maybe thinking the passenger side centre base bolster wasn't getting warm, but along with the whole seat heating, this may come on as it dries more!


Either way, facelift Si M-sport seats should be a straight swap into a pre-facelift car with non m-sport seats. Main loom plug (big one) pins all seem to line up and swap over fine! The facelift seats appear to have the occupancy sensor electronic box found seperate on pre-facelift seats, intergrated into the sensor mat itself, just as it leaves the back of the seat base to wrap under the seat proper (it's a plastic encased circuit board)


So there you have it. M-sports from any model should work in any other model :)


Cheers

Dave
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Re: M-sport seat retrofit (not yet finished)

Post by Smokin » Thu May 07, 2009 7:35 pm

Well done! You really did a great job cleaning up those seats.
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Re: M-sport seat retrofit (not yet finished)

Post by cj10jeeper » Thu May 07, 2009 9:07 pm

Great job figuring it all out. I know how much mental stress you went through getting it to all fire up properly :wink:
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Re: M-sport seat retrofit (not yet finished)

Post by Mr Whippy » Fri May 08, 2009 9:24 am

Hehe, it seems the damp was probably the problem all along for the electrical gremlins on the exposed passenger seat.

Yep, full passenger seat heating up all over now, so running that often with window down to fully dry it out, then off for a decent deep-clean/rejuvinate at a leather specialists to get them really really nice!

Really happy with the mod now. £270 delivered, with my old fully complete and working seats to sell should see me break even at least :)

Dave
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Re: M-sport seat retrofit (not yet finished)

Post by Aliv6 » Fri May 08, 2009 9:30 am

Dunno....They still look quite stressed. But good save for the money and i wouldn't gripe over them! :) Good work.
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Re: M-sport seat retrofit (not yet finished)

Post by Herminator » Fri May 08, 2009 11:28 am

Great to see they're working fully, does the leather look less wrinkled/wavy with the seat drying out more?

Got the door cards changed over to red leather versions yet?

You're better off since they're facelift versions, 2004 version would have had grey plastic trim all over them, rather than the black, so things worked out very nicely after a bit of hard work :thumbsup:
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Re: M-sport seat retrofit (not yet finished)

Post by Shipkiller » Fri May 08, 2009 12:14 pm

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Re: M-sport seat retrofit (not yet finished)

Post by Mr Whippy » Fri May 08, 2009 12:46 pm

Aliv6 wrote:Dunno....They still look quite stressed. But good save for the money and i wouldn't gripe over them! :) Good work.
Yeah, they still need work, but happier with £600+ in the pocket and learning how to get leather good again, rather than buying mint ones.
Herminator wrote:Great to see they're working fully, does the leather look less wrinkled/wavy with the seat drying out more?

Got the door cards changed over to red leather versions yet?

You're better off since they're facelift versions, 2004 version would have had grey plastic trim all over them, rather than the black, so things worked out very nicely after a bit of hard work :thumbsup:
Not done the door cards yet, will make sure everything is fine with code clearing etc before moving to those. Need to clean the 2nd one yet, and also do my discs/pads before I start more trim work :)

Not sure on the wrinkles/waves. Now they are being used more the marks are stretching out... I will take them to a pro leather worker to get them as good as they can be got for £100... as they do need some more professional attention in places...
Shipkiller wrote:Have you tried these two pages to help you out?

http://www.shipkiller.com/Z4PassSeat.html
http://www.shipkiller.com/SeatHeating.html
Haha, they would have been handy a week ago, (link is the picture, never spotted as I checked your site first :) ), but I did find the diagrams anyway!

Small difference though, the BMW wiring info doesn't point out the facelift (maybe, or it could be m-sports vs standard seats) occupancy pad has integrated electronics, so the box isn't there under the seat, the mat sensor itself outputs to the 3 wires straight to the large loom plug socket!

That is where I was getting stuck, as no diagrams mentioned that!


Dave
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Re: M-sport seat retrofit (not yet finished)

Post by Mr Whippy » Thu May 14, 2009 3:40 pm

Herminator wrote:Great to see they're working fully, does the leather look less wrinkled/wavy with the seat drying out more?
Yeah, the leather on the passenger side is now dry and no wrinkles or waves at all. Both seats look really good now bar the tiny niggles.

Going to try get the little problem areas seen to in a few weeks, so will pop up some final pictures soon :)

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Re: M-sport seat retrofit (not yet finished)

Post by Shipkiller » Fri May 15, 2009 12:10 am

I fixed the page. Now the link is clearer....
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Re: M-sport seat retrofit (not yet finished)

Post by Lightning87 » Thu Jun 14, 2012 2:29 pm

i hope i can retrofit a couple of M seats to my Pre facelift, but they are comming from a facelift type.

in this thread is says there is no difference in an other people say there is, and you have to swap the occuppation mat/ sensor.

so to make it clear : does the facelift sensor fit the Pre facelift or do i have so switch the sensor ?
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Re: M-sport seat retrofit (not yet finished)

Post by Maniac » Thu Jun 14, 2012 2:47 pm

If there are still wrinkles, I once saw a great seat restoration guide on the same seats on YouTube where a guy used a hair dryer/heated gun (GENTLY) over the panels again and again and it tightened up the leather a treat.

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Re: M-sport seat retrofit (not yet finished)

Post by peddy » Thu Jun 14, 2012 2:50 pm

Lightning87 wrote:i hope i can retrofit a couple of M seats to my Pre facelift, but they are comming from a facelift type.

in this thread is says there is no difference in an other people say there is, and you have to swap the occuppation mat/ sensor.

so to make it clear : does the facelift sensor fit the Pre facelift or do i have so switch the sensor ?
You need a occupancy sensor bypass for the passenger seat. You can get one on ebay for about £10.

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