Coventry
Acquire E46 or E53 front seats with lumbar support and the loom, these are E53, the 1st of 2 pairs I've secured.
Disassemble and extract lumbar components from within the back and the loom from the base. Once stripped down, the bare bases are identical to the electric bases in E85\6s
Don't puncture the airbags. The air pipes to the airbags are colour coded and are difficult to remove from the air regulator, I cut them off right by the nipple and cut the remnants off the nipple.
E53 loom has an additional white plug that plus to the rear of the switch pack in addition to the black 2 pin plug, and a fully pinned 6 wire connector that goes into the yellow underwear connector block. We believe this is for the memory of the electrically adjustable steering column in the E53
Fully pinned connector for the yellow block.
With your seats in your car, set the base height at the front to the lowest, the back upright and overall based height to it's highest, slide forward and after to remove 5 16mm (2 nuts, 3 bolts) the set so you can see all for mounting holes, disconnect battery, tip seat back, disconnect seat loom from floor and remove seat.
Disassemble the seats, take the back off the base 2xT45, being mindful to disconnect any heated seats electrics, then remove the base off the frame 2xT30 and pry the brackets off the bar, again being mindful of any electrics.
You can then choose to reinforce the bases with springs out of standard seats as I have done, and you can also see the clips to remove the switch pack cover trim.
If you know your way around the seat bases like I do, you won't need to remove the base from the frame as you will know where to stick a finger to release the clips that aren't visible. Once disassembled, everything is straightforward except getting the base back on the frame which can be a struggle until you get a good technique and can do it in a couple of minutes, there's always some faff.
Everything connected into the rear of the switch pack. Be very careful and particular with the loom routing so as not to pinch anything and so it all clips back together.
You will need to drill out the circular cut out in the switch pack cover trim and file any burrings off nice and tidy. The lumbar switch only goes in one way round due to a notch. I was careful to fit driver side to drivers side.
Assembled
Carefully reassemble the base electrics and be mindful of not compromising any looms.
Refit the seats base to the frame.
With the back of the seat, across the base, unhook the leather from the shell of the back. This will afford you sufficient space to slide the lumbar airbags up between the shell and the foam keeping the air bags against the foam. Dont crease anything. I slid it up about 4 inches just north of any heating wires. Clip the leather back on to the shell and the air hoses with come out the same side (right) as the heating wires if present.
Remount the seat back to the base and poke the heating wire with the air hoses down through the base to the inside of the pivot through to the underside of the seat.
Using zip ties and the convenience of the reinforcement spring, secure everything, being careful tnot to stretch or kink any air pipes and connect the regulator to the hoses and 2 loom connectors. The connections for the hoses are colour coded.
Double check your work and refit to the car.
Test and relax in your seats with retrofit lumbar support
Credit to @Alemito for showing me this mod when he was visiting from Italy last week.
Can work on manual seats but I suspect you'll need the main power feed up your loom and some other connectors as manual seats don't have a switch pack.
No coding needed
New England, Msport, Heated, Electric, Dual Memory, Lumbar.
Disassemble and extract lumbar components from within the back and the loom from the base. Once stripped down, the bare bases are identical to the electric bases in E85\6s
Don't puncture the airbags. The air pipes to the airbags are colour coded and are difficult to remove from the air regulator, I cut them off right by the nipple and cut the remnants off the nipple.
E53 loom has an additional white plug that plus to the rear of the switch pack in addition to the black 2 pin plug, and a fully pinned 6 wire connector that goes into the yellow underwear connector block. We believe this is for the memory of the electrically adjustable steering column in the E53
Fully pinned connector for the yellow block.
With your seats in your car, set the base height at the front to the lowest, the back upright and overall based height to it's highest, slide forward and after to remove 5 16mm (2 nuts, 3 bolts) the set so you can see all for mounting holes, disconnect battery, tip seat back, disconnect seat loom from floor and remove seat.
Disassemble the seats, take the back off the base 2xT45, being mindful to disconnect any heated seats electrics, then remove the base off the frame 2xT30 and pry the brackets off the bar, again being mindful of any electrics.
You can then choose to reinforce the bases with springs out of standard seats as I have done, and you can also see the clips to remove the switch pack cover trim.
If you know your way around the seat bases like I do, you won't need to remove the base from the frame as you will know where to stick a finger to release the clips that aren't visible. Once disassembled, everything is straightforward except getting the base back on the frame which can be a struggle until you get a good technique and can do it in a couple of minutes, there's always some faff.
Everything connected into the rear of the switch pack. Be very careful and particular with the loom routing so as not to pinch anything and so it all clips back together.
You will need to drill out the circular cut out in the switch pack cover trim and file any burrings off nice and tidy. The lumbar switch only goes in one way round due to a notch. I was careful to fit driver side to drivers side.
Assembled
Carefully reassemble the base electrics and be mindful of not compromising any looms.
Refit the seats base to the frame.
With the back of the seat, across the base, unhook the leather from the shell of the back. This will afford you sufficient space to slide the lumbar airbags up between the shell and the foam keeping the air bags against the foam. Dont crease anything. I slid it up about 4 inches just north of any heating wires. Clip the leather back on to the shell and the air hoses with come out the same side (right) as the heating wires if present.
Remount the seat back to the base and poke the heating wire with the air hoses down through the base to the inside of the pivot through to the underside of the seat.
Using zip ties and the convenience of the reinforcement spring, secure everything, being careful tnot to stretch or kink any air pipes and connect the regulator to the hoses and 2 loom connectors. The connections for the hoses are colour coded.
Double check your work and refit to the car.
Test and relax in your seats with retrofit lumbar support
Credit to @Alemito for showing me this mod when he was visiting from Italy last week.
Can work on manual seats but I suspect you'll need the main power feed up your loom and some other connectors as manual seats don't have a switch pack.
No coding needed
New England, Msport, Heated, Electric, Dual Memory, Lumbar.
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