[IT]

So, Saturday 27th Feb, and a reasonable day for working outside, so a bit more progress made.

I've put the physical mounting of the seats on hold for the moment as I've satisfied myself its do-able, i now need to get the wiring sorted so that once it is done I can start on the mechanicals ....

First up, we have switchgear to install in both rear doors. Its 4 wires for this right hand rear door, and the connector passes through the door and existing grommit without too much grief:



Thw switch is used to to on or off the auto seat retract function so the seats move back into the most compact position when you open the door, it makes it easier to get in / out. It has 4 wires. 2 are a simple(ish) positive and negative feed for illiumination, so the buttons light up. 1 other wire takes a feed from the door-open contact in the relevant rear door, and the final wire is the output of this switch and it goes to a limit switch at the back of the reclining seat rail. The output of this switch then feeds into the rear seat setup itself... If that all sounds a bit heavy, try working it out first hand

The electric rear seats (and the heating which I'll do later) both need to feed wires into the boot of the car to get power from the distribution box above the battery. The problem is though that at the factory, they lay the wiring loom and then block the hole up compeltely with foam (arrowed):



Here is said foam remove, look how much there is !! - Dont even think of getting a wire through here without removing this stuff..... It comes out with some decent screwdriver prodding, but dont snag any wires...



Here is our nice clear gap through which we can poke cables now....



And to poke through, just pop the cables on a length of flexible conduit like this and poke through....



ok, so power sorted, we now need to feed the cables into the rear passenger side door:

There are 2 connectors in here. We have a 4 wire connector for the auto-retract function again, but also a 5 wire connector for the button that lets the rear seat passenger move the front passenger seat forward for more leg room. In summary, the forward/backwards switch in the front passenger seat is re-routed through this switch so that the rear switch is effectively connected directly to that motor, and it has over-riding control. There is also a +12 feed into the switch so that it has the power (physically) to drive to motor independently of any button being pressed on the seat itself. To complicate things further, this motor is quite a high power drain, so it has its own dedicated relay in the passenger foot well to supply the current, and this relay is activated again by the isolation switch on the drivers door - ie when the driver turns off the rear windows, it also turns off this button in the rear to the control the front seat. Neat, stops the kids playing with it etc....



I've had a few problems remembering exactly how the wiring loom sections I cut out went back together as the bad weather has delayed the implementation, so I've fortunately had the old loom to refer to :



I will say this now - Without the actual car to dismantle, I really cant see how anybody could attempt this retro-fit. You need so many bits and pieces, and reference points, that I find it hard to believe anyone else has every completed this retrofit - I honestly think changing the engine is considerably more straightforward than this and I definitely wouldn't have started it if I'd fully comprehended how tough it was going to be... !!

I've started now though, so I'll just have to finish.....