Has anyone changed their front seats?

Discussion on body issues/mods, appearance, interior/trim, and detailing (i.e. how to keep your car looking showroom new, or a reasonable facsimile thereof...).
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elc32955
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Re: Has anyone changed their front seats?

Post by elc32955 »

Just a little update. I recently located a matching Recaro CTS-V rear seat set in Miami out of a wrecked 2009, today I went down & picked it up.

I'll take some pics in a day or so, these seats need a very through cleaning and some minor spot repair. They sat in a open-air warehouse for a little over a year without being wrapped, and they are pretty scungy as a result. No rips or large punctures in the leather, it's more ingrained dirt and one or two spots where it looks like it got a little hot somehow (not a cigarette burn, it was something else just on top of the leather). I'll have to have a seat guy take a look at it and see if the damage can be cleaned up. It's liveable if I have to put up with it, it was a tradeoff since it was the correct matching seat set for the Recaros.

The depressing news is, contrary to the hopes & desires I had, that these seats appear NOT to be a direct bolt-in substitute from first glance. The rear of the CTS-V seat is much more sturdy then the Caprice or G8 seat appears to be with a hard, carpeted back plate. I know our Caprice police seats hook into the top with four hangers, the CTS seat does not have the hangers. There's a bolt-in assembly on the upper side of the back, two long studs and a flat (horizontal) steel plate. I'll have to look at the Caprice body to see if the holes might be there with the OEM seat out. If it's just holes, that can be fixed with Mr. Drill and some paint. I'm more worried about fitting in the flat plate and fabricating a hold-down bar (probably out of painted aluminum stock). The bottom of the seat hooks into the frame with two push-in latches. Again, I'll have to pull my seat set after the CTS-V's are cleaned up and see how bad the mods will be to make everything work, without pulling my Caprice seats and a cam I really can't analyze it throughly. The CTS back does have the passthrough to the trunk though, huzzah for small wins!
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Re: Has anyone changed their front seats?

Post by Navy Lifer »

VF Calais V seating: http://smh.drive.com.au/photogallery/ho ... edImage=14" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
(open & toggle to pictures 17 thru 21)

The SS has similar seats (without the skunk stripe) and will be so rare that it will be challenging to snag seats from a wreck--they're pretty well-equipped. Not Recaros, but a nice upgrade for PPV or G8. The G8 guys will be our main competition for these pieces. Too bad the RHD stuff as shown here (Calais) would be cost-prohibitive and "wrong" for LHD.....

I previously posted a picture of the SS driver's seat in the 2014 SS section.
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elc32955
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Re: Has anyone changed their front seats?

Post by elc32955 »

Just a brief update on the seating project. I've finally got up off my dead rear and am starting work on this. The CTS-V rear seat ended up being too short length-wise to fit, so I made an executive decision to not install the rear. I'll end up finding a G8 set in black leather and putting it back there probably.

I'm currently working on electrical wiring hookup for the Recaro seat going in the driver's position. The connector for the seat end (simulating the body harness) is a fairly common connector that GM is using, it's used on multiple vehicles including Cadillac CTS, CTS-V, STS, SRX, Buick Terraza, Buick Enclave, Saturn Relay, Pontiac SV-6, Pontiac Montana, GMC Terrain, Chevy Uplander, Traverse, and Equinox. It's a Yazaki Kaizen 14 pin connector and I've got the print on it. Challenge has been to find one in a salvage yard because they're in all 2005 & newer cars, must of the u-pull yards don't have cars that new yet and a decent yard won't let you hack up a body harness unless it's already messed up anyway. Or unless you want to purchase a whole $300-$400 body harness. For something you need one connector and pigtail from.

The connector for the Caprice end (simulating the seat end) is a little harder to find. But, I'm working on it diligently. After I have both connectors I'll build a interface cable. The Recaro has several 12V DC inputs on the + side, all of which are constant 12V with the exception of one that's key switched power. I can take that one off the police harness without too much trouble and just run a new conductor to the seat. The challenge will be the bolt-up. Don't think the existing rails will interchange based on some quick observation so I'm going to probably have to do custom bracketing. Uck. I visited two salvage yards today and struck out both times, although the first yard wanted me to come back next week (they were sorta slammed on phones) to hunt.

Also still have to figure out the interface for the heaters and fans on the Recaro. I know which wires are control for the seat, just not what input is expected by the seat. I hope it's easy to sort that one out, then all I have to do is work out locating a few toggles for the seat and find out what makes the seat happy coming down those control lines. I would like all the functions working (except memory, depends on the car's logic for that one. Not gonna happen... lol) if possible.

Eric
System Manager and your tour guide for the day. 2015 Caprice w/LFX, former NC DPS staff car. Partial hybrid G8/SS/Camaro SS interior mods, SS MyLink radio upgrade, 2016 Camaro V6 rims, GMPP Malibu chrome exhaust tips, otherwise bone stock for now.
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Tom Slick
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Re: Has anyone changed their front seats?

Post by Tom Slick »

Eric,

You might see if you can get it through Mouser Electronics...

Or maybe the manufacturer can send you a few samples! ;-)


Later,
Tom Slick
1932 Glassic Ford Model A Roadster Replica - Ford 302/C4, approx. 1400lb... :-)
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Gerome
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Re: Has anyone changed their front seats?

Post by Gerome »

Any updates on the seat swap ?
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elc32955
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Re: Has anyone changed their front seats?

Post by elc32955 »

It's still sitting in my garage. I ran into some interesting commentary from the person that put the CTS-V Recaros in a 2010 Camaro promo car (Zeta platform) on one of the other forum boards while researching, he said the swap basically was hard as hell and required extensive modification to the seat. There are differences between the rails from a quicky look without tearing my car apart to verify the fitment. Right now I'm questioning how much I really want to go ahead with this as I don't want to dump a bunch of money into a project and get just one side done. Plus, butcher the seat up so it's can't ever be used in anything else. Also I tried a sit test in the seat (yep, I'm a Chris Farley clone) and my butt didn't fit totally comfortably, the 9C3 seat actually feels better since it's made for (ahem..) bigger police officers. Yeah, that was politically correct!

SO.... I'm debating whether to continue, pass it along to another Caprice or G8 owner, or list it on the Cadi forums.....
System Manager and your tour guide for the day. 2015 Caprice w/LFX, former NC DPS staff car. Partial hybrid G8/SS/Camaro SS interior mods, SS MyLink radio upgrade, 2016 Camaro V6 rims, GMPP Malibu chrome exhaust tips, otherwise bone stock for now.
Gerome
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Re: Has anyone changed their front seats?

Post by Gerome »

It's still a really cool idea . Was the swap not possible using the same seat rails (the ones from the caprice) ?
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greasychevy
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Re: Has anyone changed their front seats?

Post by greasychevy »

I gotta say i think out seats are comfortable as hell. The only thing i would want to change is the color. I love the two tone like the G8s have. One day i might look into a dark blue/charcoal seat recover.
2011 9c1 Hugo Blue
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elc32955
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Re: Has anyone changed their front seats?

Post by elc32955 »

Try sitting in a Volvo S60/V70 sport seat from 2001-2007, cloth/leather 50/50 (not the all leather seat) . The seat in my 2004 V70 was the most comfortable car seat that I've ever sat in - once it's set properly. And, the seat fit me perfectly. Only thing I can say is that it probably wouldn't hold up for hot-seating in fleet duty. It'd be fine for a single driver car though. This is what I'm talking about...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/230980381603?ss ... 1423.l2649

I don't believe a simple rail swap is possible due to the construction of the Recaro seat. It's not like the Recaros that were designed to swap car to car, it's purpose built for that series vehicle.
System Manager and your tour guide for the day. 2015 Caprice w/LFX, former NC DPS staff car. Partial hybrid G8/SS/Camaro SS interior mods, SS MyLink radio upgrade, 2016 Camaro V6 rims, GMPP Malibu chrome exhaust tips, otherwise bone stock for now.
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