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......................................................................................November 09 - ///Makeover Part 2
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- ///M Coupe red/black seats fitted
I’d been searching for a set of heated red/black seats from the ///M z3 for a while and stumbled across a set on Flea Bay that had been fitted to a Vauxhall Astra. I felt it only correct that they should be returned to a zed and bought them for a bargain price earlier in the year. They were a bargain for a reason; the seat rails had been modified to get them into the Astra and the driver’s bolster was very worn. Restoring these seats to their former glory has been a labour of love over the summer months but I was eventually happy with them and finally got them installed last month. This is the story of the restoration:
<All pics - click to enlarge>
-DISASSEMBLY-
This is how the seats looked when I first collected them. They were very dirty and generally in quite poor condition:
The first step was to get the seats separated from the bases:
I undid the 2 bolts at the rear of the seat base. You can then hinge the seat forward to access the cables you need to disconnect:
I unplugged the 2 seat motors, the seat stop connector and released all cable ties from the bottom of the seat pan.
Because of the cable routeing for the seat recline mechanism you have to disconnect the cables on each side of the seat (circled on the picture above) before you can fully separate the base. This is the routeing that I needed to undo:
The cables are easy to remove from the retainers. Pull the cable outboard with needle nosed pliers and lift from the retaining clamp. You need to pull the plastic cable retainer from the seat pan so that you can thread it back through the seat base. You need to do this on both sides.
Recliner cable in place:
(note that on later seats the metal retainer is sometimes straight and not bent - you can bend it 'open' with pliers)
Recliner cable removed from retaining clamp:
The plastic cable retainer is highlighted. You can pull it away from the seat by hand. I was now able to unthread the recliner cables. The recliner mechanism plastic shroud is released from the seat by undoing the 2 screws on the side of the plastic housing and 1 on the front of the seat. I was now able to remove the seat base from the seat.
This is what I had left now (note some ‘adapted’ wiring from when the seats were in the Astra!):
The seat up/down/forward/back switch pulls off by hand. You can unclip the switch mechanism from the inside of the plastic recliner mechanism so that you leave the wiring loom and switch attached to the seat. The plastic trim part was now free.
-REFURBISHMENT-
Now that the seats were separated from the bases it was time to give them a thorough clean. I used Leather Ultra Clean from Furniture Clinic and Autoglym leather cleaner. I also had to use a worn abrasive pad to get rid of some white paint spots on the seats (this might horrify leather restorer specialists however it worked a treat for me
) I was extremely pleased with the cleaning results. The passenger seat was like new with very little wear. The driver's seat was the complete opposite though - the cleaning revealed the true extent of the wear. I'd read some leather restoration guides on Detailing World and they advised that the excess wear should be sanded with wet 'n' dry prior to painting. Whilst this seemed slightly alien I felt had nothing to lose and was ultimately pleased with the smooth finish that was now ready for leather paint:
I'd also struggled to fully remove staining from the driver's side thigh support so i elected to paint this aswell. Initially I used paint from Furniture Clinic. This requires you to mix the correct shade from a base red by adding white, black, blue and yellow until you get a good match. This is quite tricky to achieve however I ended up with a reasonable match. The results were ok (but only ok, I'm a bit of a perfectionist so wasn't totally happy
):
A couple of days after painting jonttt posted details of leather refurb paint that was a perfect match:
http://www.zroadster.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=21648 I had to get some! Although it's expensive the colour match was spot on. Because I'd done all the prep work applying this new colour was straightforward and I applied 3 coats to get a finish I was happy with.
-REASSEMBLY-
I thought it would be a good idea to use the original coupe passenger seat on my driver's side since it was in almost new condition (this would also reduce wear on the well used original driver's seat by putting it in the passenger side). This is achievable with coupe seats since they don't have the seat belt guides fitted and I suspected that the bases would be interchangeable
I also wanted to update the seat connectors to the facelift type to avoid the recurring airbag light problem and needed new bases anyway (since the ones that came with the seats had been :ahem: modified to fit in an Astra
)
All I had to do now was find some facelift seat bases......at which point Naeem.m comes to the rescue and offers his cloth seats from his facelift zed for sale on the Stock Exchange
Refitting the bases was essentially the reverse of removal. The only extra thing I had to do was make some holes in the leather base to allow the recline mechanisms to swap sides. This was straightforward and proves that the seats are the same for driver and passenger except for the bases. What about the passenger seat occupancy sensor though? Although I was well prepared and had got a simulator from Vinci on Bimmerforums it turned out that I didn't need it because I don't have a passenger airbag installed. I put it in anyway as I figured that I wouldn't lose it that way:
-INSTALLATION-
There are plenty of guides online about removing and installing seats online so I won't describe that aspect - suffice to say that one of my rear bolts was very tight and caused a couple of bruised knuckles!
Because I was using facelift seat bases I had to replace the prefacelift connectors that were already in the car. I was prepared for a battle but it was remarkably straightforward. The wire colours are the same pre and post facelift and, luckily, Naeem.m had given me the car side connectors when he'd removed his seats (I suspect that he put pre-facelift seats into his post facelift car) and left enough wire for me to read across the pre and post facelift colours. I bought a selection of terminations from the $tealer but ultimately only needed the seat motor power ones since the pretensioner terminations were the same. Here's a few piccies to illustrate the simplicity:
Pretensioner contacts being transferred from old to new connector:
Power connectors being transferred from old to new connector:
New connector alongside heated seat plug (with old connectors tied back in the loom):
I was surprised at how much bigger the new seats look compared to the old ones once installed:
I didn't connect up the heated seat switches just yet as I have new style switches ready for my ///M console that's next to go in. I did find the connectors next to the gear lever though so everything is ready:
I'm very pleased with the overall result and think that the new seats are a vast improvement.
At the moment I've not bothered fitting the seatbelt guides. For me the jury is still out as to whether I need to do this - I'll live with the seats for a while and see what I think. So far so good though.
The new seat connectors are bearing up well too. Both seats have been moved several times throughout their full range and I've not seen an airbag light yet
its is a credit to you. I look forward to inspecting your work at santa pod, might pic your brains too.
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