Mopar Heated Seat Install
10-03-2008, 09:29 AM
#31
JK Junkie
Honestly if you can turn a wrench you don't need to pay the stealership to do this.. It really easy. I did not need the hog ring pliers I unbolted the back of the seats from the bottom (2 bolts each) and the heated inserts are much easier to install that way, and you don't have to cut any of the original hog rings!
I too installed the controls in the center console. And it looks stock and is super easy for driver and the passenger to access the buttons.
This is a super nice kit!
Just in case you didn't know the Mopar kit is completely water proof too!
I too installed the controls in the center console. And it looks stock and is super easy for driver and the passenger to access the buttons.
This is a super nice kit!
Just in case you didn't know the Mopar kit is completely water proof too!
10-18-2008, 05:46 PM
#33
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Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: nashua, nh
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OK, I installed my kit today.
a couple of items:
Those bolts holding the seats to the floorboards were a pia. I had a 3' pipe on a 1/2" drive and still had trouble. One seat took an hour to get all 4 bolts out. Then it hit me that there was too much load. So I squirted the washer with PB blaster and then climbed under the Jeep and squirted the exposed threads. Let set for 5 minutes.
Things were easy after that.
The factory paper work says the seatbelt bolts are t-50. They are t-45 on my Wrangler
For the seat cushion, I only removed the 5 hog rings on the front of the cushion and then 2 rings on 1 side and 1 on the other. By doing this you do not have to remove the handle for height adjustment.
I suggest you remove the paper backing 2=3 times and reapply brefore installing the heat elements. Makes it easier to roll it off when you have the pad in place.
Hog rings are a pain. I used cable ties. You locate them so the excess goes down around the seat wire, up over the the cover hole, and then though the lock aimed outward.
When you tighten the tie, you cut the excess off with a snipper, then rotate the cable tie 120 degrees until the locking mechisim in aimed downward into the foam. MUCH faster than screwing around with hog rings if you are not used to them.
I took the seat backs off which allowed one to put in the back pad without touching hog rings. Note that the 2 bolts on each side have a lot of loctite on them which makes it a pain to remove. Once you get them out, wire brush most that stuff off.
Before assembly, be sure to put a bit of lithium grease on the seat bolt holes so they do not sieze up again. Make assembly much easier.
I installed the heat buttons in the console between the shifter and cup holder. I took the 4 T-40 screws out of the console and lifted it enough to get everything aligned.
Wife is absolutely ga-ga about the heated seats in her JK. I am hero for the day!
a couple of items:
Those bolts holding the seats to the floorboards were a pia. I had a 3' pipe on a 1/2" drive and still had trouble. One seat took an hour to get all 4 bolts out. Then it hit me that there was too much load. So I squirted the washer with PB blaster and then climbed under the Jeep and squirted the exposed threads. Let set for 5 minutes.
Things were easy after that.
The factory paper work says the seatbelt bolts are t-50. They are t-45 on my Wrangler
For the seat cushion, I only removed the 5 hog rings on the front of the cushion and then 2 rings on 1 side and 1 on the other. By doing this you do not have to remove the handle for height adjustment.
I suggest you remove the paper backing 2=3 times and reapply brefore installing the heat elements. Makes it easier to roll it off when you have the pad in place.
Hog rings are a pain. I used cable ties. You locate them so the excess goes down around the seat wire, up over the the cover hole, and then though the lock aimed outward.
When you tighten the tie, you cut the excess off with a snipper, then rotate the cable tie 120 degrees until the locking mechisim in aimed downward into the foam. MUCH faster than screwing around with hog rings if you are not used to them.
I took the seat backs off which allowed one to put in the back pad without touching hog rings. Note that the 2 bolts on each side have a lot of loctite on them which makes it a pain to remove. Once you get them out, wire brush most that stuff off.
Before assembly, be sure to put a bit of lithium grease on the seat bolt holes so they do not sieze up again. Make assembly much easier.
I installed the heat buttons in the console between the shifter and cup holder. I took the 4 T-40 screws out of the console and lifted it enough to get everything aligned.
Wife is absolutely ga-ga about the heated seats in her JK. I am hero for the day!
10-23-2008, 03:54 PM
#35
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Join Date: May 2008
Location: Edmonton, Alberta
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Just installed mine today. Here are some comments:
Took me about 5 hours by myself.
The bolts are a bit of a PITA, they're not super tight, but they don't loosen up at all until it's half out. For the rear bolts when you've got about 30 degrees of motion on a 2' snipe/ratchet, it's a bit frustrating
They went back in a lot better, and I sprayed some Rust-Check on the threads to avoid rusting.
Note that my seatbelt bolts were T-45 as well, NOT T-50.
The seat material itself is straightforward to get off.
I didn't use a single hog-clip or whatever they're called... they're no fun at all. I cut the old ones off, and used small zip-ties, rotating them downwards and out of the way. Works perfectly, very straightforward.
Note that if you DO use the hog-clips, there're only 18 of them; not enough if you cut off both sides... you'll have to do just the front and one side. This would make sticking the element on a bit harder.
The back, however, was a total PITA. It's hard to explain, but I'll try:
The front + back of the back (confused yet?) meet where the back meets the seat. There is a plastic lip on the front, as well as the back, and they kinda snap together. This is hard to see, and I had to bend things around to figure it out. I separated them by starting from one side and working across. I think this is easier if the seat is fully upright (the gap between seat + back was largest then, IIRC).
Re-attaching the front + back of the back was a big PITA. I basically sat crosslegged with the seat face-down on my lap, and pushed the front lip part of the back into the gap with one arm, while I used a slot screwdriver pushing the back lip part of the back into the front lip until clipped with my other arm, again, working from one side to the other. As far as I could tell, there's no easier way to do it, and even the 2nd time it wasn't any easier.
For the dash, I removed the 4 screws as per instructions. There are 4 "clips" holding it on after that, 2 immediately above the bottom screws, and 2 more 1 "row" above that. By reaching from the bottom, sticking my fingers as far up as I could and pulling, it came off easily (but painfully... my poor knuckle skin). The other 2 clips will come off the same way.
I put the switch unit between the shifter and cupholder, as others have done. I removed the shift boot (6spd) by prying up the back part, which allowed me to reach the under-part of the switch ribbon cable through the hole. I took the 2 screws off either side of the console, which gave me a bit more movement.
NOTE: if you decide to put the switch between the cupholder and shifter, don't put it too close to the cupholder! The plastic seems to get thicker there, and it involves more cutting to get the ribbon cable through. I had to "cross drill" my slot a bit, it was almost too close. You can feel what I'm talking about via the shift-boot hole.
I stuffed the brick thing and excess cable behind the bottom most "blank" panel in the dash. It all fit nicely.
For the seat cables themselves (the 4-wire greenish ones), I pulled back the carpet from the console, and slipped the cable around the front of the console plastic. You don't need to stuff the plastic plug between the steel floor + console, you can kinda "dental-floss" style it up to where it needs to be.
Anyway, all in all it went well, the wife and I love the heat, and it looks good.
Took me about 5 hours by myself.
The bolts are a bit of a PITA, they're not super tight, but they don't loosen up at all until it's half out. For the rear bolts when you've got about 30 degrees of motion on a 2' snipe/ratchet, it's a bit frustrating
They went back in a lot better, and I sprayed some Rust-Check on the threads to avoid rusting.Note that my seatbelt bolts were T-45 as well, NOT T-50.
The seat material itself is straightforward to get off.
I didn't use a single hog-clip or whatever they're called... they're no fun at all. I cut the old ones off, and used small zip-ties, rotating them downwards and out of the way. Works perfectly, very straightforward.
Note that if you DO use the hog-clips, there're only 18 of them; not enough if you cut off both sides... you'll have to do just the front and one side. This would make sticking the element on a bit harder.
The back, however, was a total PITA. It's hard to explain, but I'll try:
The front + back of the back (confused yet?) meet where the back meets the seat. There is a plastic lip on the front, as well as the back, and they kinda snap together. This is hard to see, and I had to bend things around to figure it out. I separated them by starting from one side and working across. I think this is easier if the seat is fully upright (the gap between seat + back was largest then, IIRC).
Re-attaching the front + back of the back was a big PITA. I basically sat crosslegged with the seat face-down on my lap, and pushed the front lip part of the back into the gap with one arm, while I used a slot screwdriver pushing the back lip part of the back into the front lip until clipped with my other arm, again, working from one side to the other. As far as I could tell, there's no easier way to do it, and even the 2nd time it wasn't any easier.
For the dash, I removed the 4 screws as per instructions. There are 4 "clips" holding it on after that, 2 immediately above the bottom screws, and 2 more 1 "row" above that. By reaching from the bottom, sticking my fingers as far up as I could and pulling, it came off easily (but painfully... my poor knuckle skin). The other 2 clips will come off the same way.
I put the switch unit between the shifter and cupholder, as others have done. I removed the shift boot (6spd) by prying up the back part, which allowed me to reach the under-part of the switch ribbon cable through the hole. I took the 2 screws off either side of the console, which gave me a bit more movement.
NOTE: if you decide to put the switch between the cupholder and shifter, don't put it too close to the cupholder! The plastic seems to get thicker there, and it involves more cutting to get the ribbon cable through. I had to "cross drill" my slot a bit, it was almost too close. You can feel what I'm talking about via the shift-boot hole.
I stuffed the brick thing and excess cable behind the bottom most "blank" panel in the dash. It all fit nicely.
For the seat cables themselves (the 4-wire greenish ones), I pulled back the carpet from the console, and slipped the cable around the front of the console plastic. You don't need to stuff the plastic plug between the steel floor + console, you can kinda "dental-floss" style it up to where it needs to be.
Anyway, all in all it went well, the wife and I love the heat, and it looks good.
10-25-2008, 09:43 PM
#37
JK Enthusiast
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: nashua, nh
Posts: 142
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Just installed mine today. Here are some comments:
Took me about 5 hours by myself.
The bolts are a bit of a PITA, they're not super tight, but they don't loosen up at all until it's half out. For the rear bolts when you've got about 30 degrees of motion on a 2' snipe/ratchet, it's a bit frustrating They went back in a lot better, and I sprayed some Rust-Check on the threads to avoid rusting.
Note that my seatbelt bolts were T-45 as well, NOT T-50.
The seat material itself is straightforward to get off.
I didn't use a single hog-clip or whatever they're called... they're no fun at all. I cut the old ones off, and used small zip-ties, rotating them downwards and out of the way. Works perfectly, very straightforward.
Note that if you DO use the hog-clips, there're only 18 of them; not enough if you cut off both sides... you'll have to do just the front and one side. This would make sticking the element on a bit harder.
The back, however, was a total PITA. It's hard to explain, but I'll try:
The front + back of the back (confused yet?) meet where the back meets the seat. There is a plastic lip on the front, as well as the back, and they kinda snap together. This is hard to see, and I had to bend things around to figure it out. I separated them by starting from one side and working across. I think this is easier if the seat is fully upright (the gap between seat + back was largest then, IIRC).
Re-attaching the front + back of the back was a big PITA. I basically sat crosslegged with the seat face-down on my lap, and pushed the front lip part of the back into the gap with one arm, while I used a slot screwdriver pushing the back lip part of the back into the front lip until clipped with my other arm, again, working from one side to the other. As far as I could tell, there's no easier way to do it, and even the 2nd time it wasn't any easier.
For the dash, I removed the 4 screws as per instructions. There are 4 "clips" holding it on after that, 2 immediately above the bottom screws, and 2 more 1 "row" above that. By reaching from the bottom, sticking my fingers as far up as I could and pulling, it came off easily (but painfully... my poor knuckle skin). The other 2 clips will come off the same way.
I put the switch unit between the shifter and cupholder, as others have done. I removed the shift boot (6spd) by prying up the back part, which allowed me to reach the under-part of the switch ribbon cable through the hole. I took the 2 screws off either side of the console, which gave me a bit more movement.
NOTE: if you decide to put the switch between the cupholder and shifter, don't put it too close to the cupholder! The plastic seems to get thicker there, and it involves more cutting to get the ribbon cable through. I had to "cross drill" my slot a bit, it was almost too close. You can feel what I'm talking about via the shift-boot hole.
I stuffed the brick thing and excess cable behind the bottom most "blank" panel in the dash. It all fit nicely.
For the seat cables themselves (the 4-wire greenish ones), I pulled back the carpet from the console, and slipped the cable around the front of the console plastic. You don't need to stuff the plastic plug between the steel floor + console, you can kinda "dental-floss" style it up to where it needs to be.
Anyway, all in all it went well, the wife and I love the heat, and it looks good.
Took me about 5 hours by myself.
The bolts are a bit of a PITA, they're not super tight, but they don't loosen up at all until it's half out. For the rear bolts when you've got about 30 degrees of motion on a 2' snipe/ratchet, it's a bit frustrating
They went back in a lot better, and I sprayed some Rust-Check on the threads to avoid rusting.Note that my seatbelt bolts were T-45 as well, NOT T-50.
The seat material itself is straightforward to get off.
I didn't use a single hog-clip or whatever they're called... they're no fun at all. I cut the old ones off, and used small zip-ties, rotating them downwards and out of the way. Works perfectly, very straightforward.
Note that if you DO use the hog-clips, there're only 18 of them; not enough if you cut off both sides... you'll have to do just the front and one side. This would make sticking the element on a bit harder.
The back, however, was a total PITA. It's hard to explain, but I'll try:
The front + back of the back (confused yet?) meet where the back meets the seat. There is a plastic lip on the front, as well as the back, and they kinda snap together. This is hard to see, and I had to bend things around to figure it out. I separated them by starting from one side and working across. I think this is easier if the seat is fully upright (the gap between seat + back was largest then, IIRC).
Re-attaching the front + back of the back was a big PITA. I basically sat crosslegged with the seat face-down on my lap, and pushed the front lip part of the back into the gap with one arm, while I used a slot screwdriver pushing the back lip part of the back into the front lip until clipped with my other arm, again, working from one side to the other. As far as I could tell, there's no easier way to do it, and even the 2nd time it wasn't any easier.
For the dash, I removed the 4 screws as per instructions. There are 4 "clips" holding it on after that, 2 immediately above the bottom screws, and 2 more 1 "row" above that. By reaching from the bottom, sticking my fingers as far up as I could and pulling, it came off easily (but painfully... my poor knuckle skin). The other 2 clips will come off the same way.
I put the switch unit between the shifter and cupholder, as others have done. I removed the shift boot (6spd) by prying up the back part, which allowed me to reach the under-part of the switch ribbon cable through the hole. I took the 2 screws off either side of the console, which gave me a bit more movement.
NOTE: if you decide to put the switch between the cupholder and shifter, don't put it too close to the cupholder! The plastic seems to get thicker there, and it involves more cutting to get the ribbon cable through. I had to "cross drill" my slot a bit, it was almost too close. You can feel what I'm talking about via the shift-boot hole.
I stuffed the brick thing and excess cable behind the bottom most "blank" panel in the dash. It all fit nicely.
For the seat cables themselves (the 4-wire greenish ones), I pulled back the carpet from the console, and slipped the cable around the front of the console plastic. You don't need to stuff the plastic plug between the steel floor + console, you can kinda "dental-floss" style it up to where it needs to be.
Anyway, all in all it went well, the wife and I love the heat, and it looks good.
Did you remove the seat top from the bottom ?
I pulled the 4 bolts exposing the front and back pieces fof the top.
A thin 6" screw driver popped it apart.
to reassemble, I laid the unit with the front facing up on the floor.
I put my knee on it to compress the foam a bit and it popped right together.
To reattach the seat top and bottom, put the bottom on its side on a table.
Then slide the top into it on it's side. Start the bolt on 1 side, stand the unit upright and then install a bolt on the other. Then put the other two in. Helps to wire brush some of the excessive thread lock off the bolt threads first, else it is hard to turn the bolts.
After 7 hours in the cold putting the winter cover frame on my boat with a stiff fall breeze, it sure was nice to switch on that heated seat for the 90 minute ride home. Loosend the old back muscles right up...
10-27-2008, 09:31 AM
#40
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Join Date: May 2008
Location: Edmonton, Alberta
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Glad the zip tie trick worked for you.
Did you remove the seat top from the bottom ?
I pulled the 4 bolts exposing the front and back pieces fof the top.
A thin 6" screw driver popped it apart.
to reassemble, I laid the unit with the front facing up on the floor.
I put my knee on it to compress the foam a bit and it popped right together.
To reattach the seat top and bottom, put the bottom on its side on a table.
Then slide the top into it on it's side. Start the bolt on 1 side, stand the unit upright and then install a bolt on the other. Then put the other two in. Helps to wire brush some of the excessive thread lock off the bolt threads first, else it is hard to turn the bolts.
After 7 hours in the cold putting the winter cover frame on my boat with a stiff fall breeze, it sure was nice to switch on that heated seat for the 90 minute ride home. Loosend the old back muscles right up...
Did you remove the seat top from the bottom ?
I pulled the 4 bolts exposing the front and back pieces fof the top.
A thin 6" screw driver popped it apart.
to reassemble, I laid the unit with the front facing up on the floor.
I put my knee on it to compress the foam a bit and it popped right together.
To reattach the seat top and bottom, put the bottom on its side on a table.
Then slide the top into it on it's side. Start the bolt on 1 side, stand the unit upright and then install a bolt on the other. Then put the other two in. Helps to wire brush some of the excessive thread lock off the bolt threads first, else it is hard to turn the bolts.
After 7 hours in the cold putting the winter cover frame on my boat with a stiff fall breeze, it sure was nice to switch on that heated seat for the 90 minute ride home. Loosend the old back muscles right up...
