I have been waiting for a day without rain when I'm not working to finally have a test fit and today (25th March 2023) according to the forecast is that day. There was no rain due until midday and I was very lucky that at 11am with the roof down and battery disconnected the heavens opened and I got one throughly drenched interior and tools, 10 minutes later the sun is out
That's enough waffle but below is a brief summary of what's what for those wanting to just get on with it and I will do a more detailed write up with pictures later once I have completed test fitting.
Ok the electrics, you will need donor plugs from a pair of standard seats from an E85/6 but they have to be Electric and Heated:
Heated seats - E89 seats have a box underneath to control the heat pads, the E85 does all this from the centre console switch unit in front of the gear stick, so the box can be removed. You are left with 2 plugs from the heat pads which have exactly the same coloured wiring. Cut the plugs off the donor seats leaving long tails so you can connect the wires up.
Lordosis (inflated bolsters/back) - This is all controlled on board the seat you just need to provide 12v power. The basic setup is just inflated bolsters the more fancy seats have inflated back support as well. Regardless of which you choose the basic setup is the same wiring as the fancy and the basic can be retrofitted with fancy support bags if you so wish. There are 2 wires to connect and the colours red/black is positive and the brown is ground. You will need the donor plug from electric seats regardless of whether you chose manual or electric E89 seats. Connect the red/black to positive and brown to negative/ground.
Electric powered seats: I chose manual seats but the lordosis positive and electric seat positive are wired together and the same for the negative's.
Passenger seat occupancy sensor - you will need a sensor bypass. I don't know if it will work or not. Please see update on this for facelift cars.
Seat belt pretensioner - You will need the pretensioners from an E85/6. There are 4 wire's to connect and none of them need cutting and the pins are the same as the E85/6 so just remove them. The red and black goes into the place of the red and black of your E85/6 plug which is simple, this is for the sensor so the car knows you have your seat belt connected.
Now the head scratching and difficult bit for the pretensioner and I have guessed so need help with this but nothing blew up when I connected for testing. The E89 has Yellow and Blue, the E85 is not fussy and the polarity does not matter so they are Black and Black. The wire harness on the car (pre-facelift) has Red and Blue/Brown. I connected Yellow to Red and Blue to Blue/Brown. I don't know if this will fire in a crash but it didn't fire prematurely when I hooked up the power and started the car.
Seat Airbag - Identify the plug as it should be the only one left and don't connect it to anything. Yorkie removed the airbag from the seat but I don't see why that's needed and won't fire without power. To save weight or maybe it has value to be sold on?
Fitting of the rails:
I am trying to make a set of plates which everyone regardless of skill level should be able to make. I can weld and have access to welder at work but wanted to avoid that as most people don't have that luxury. You will need a pillar drill though and an angle grinder as well as other tools but those two are the most expensive ones you'll need.
My car is in the garage with only just enough room to get in and out so I have made plates blind but with seat bases from an E85/6 for guidance in my shed.
Now the rails on one side of the seat almost fit perfectly. With the rail mounted on the front bolt the rear hole is long by about 3-5mm. The bolt almost goes in so this hole needs elongating.
The width is too narrow on the e89 rails so they need to be widened. I, in my error, made plates to widen the seat buckle side but after test fitting realised I need to widen the rails on the seat controls side.
The plates I have made were actually spot on though for the measurements so I just need to re-make them for the otherside.
This is a work in progress and will be at least a week before I can make new plates and re-fit the seats before I can show you what to do.
The seat belt will bolt onto the seat fixing but will need spacers and a longer nut. More information on this to follow.
Anyway a few pictures and note the seat is incorrectly fitted and at maximum height, I am terrible with remembering to take pictures along the way but I will get more later which will help.
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