Member Credit: made in china
I am going to try my best to explain how to install the newer seats from Gen 5/5.5’s. I installed heated, power front and heated rear seats into my cloth interior 97 SE.
There is 4 12mm bolts holding the seat bottom on. Remove them. Pull seat bottom out of the frame and set aside in a safe place.
There is 4 14mm bolts that mount the seat back to the recliner mechanism. To get to them, partially pull back the leather. There will be airbag and possibly seat heater wiring to disconnect also. Set aside in a safe place.
For the driver seat, you’ll need to pull the seat memory module and the main harness if so equipped. Set aside for modification. The pass side seat electrics need no extra work and will connect to your A32’s stock power wire.
Mark the inboard (tunnel side) seat mounts at the notch and before the radius of the corner. Use a hacksaw to cut a tab, and bend that tab flat.
Finished product of bending.
Drill a hole in about the center of the tab. You will need to double check where the hole will end up, but this pic will give you the idea.
Now you’ll need to drill out the 2 rivets and 2 spot welds on the 5/5.5 Gen seats and break off the outboard side rear bracket.
Do the same on the Gen 4 seat, you’ll need the one on the left. Bolt the Gen 4 one to the Gen 5/5.5 rail using the holes you made while drilling out the rivets.
OK, so I left alot of stuff out. I will update this as I get more pics, but this should give you an idea of what kind of work is involved. If you happen to find minty new seats from a Gen 5.5 like I did, you may just want to attempt this.
The rear seats amazingly snap right into place with little mods needed. On my I35 seats, the rears folded down as opposed to how my original seats did not. The I35 seat bottom snapped right into place, and the outer leather pieces bolted into place using the same lower 10mm mounting points as the original seats. The seat backs require latches and hinges to be installed, so just use those parts from the donor car and screw them down with self tapping screws.
Heated seats: My I35 seats are heated front and rear. I am awaiting the Gen 4 center console and switches to arrive before I wire in the seat heaters. I have all 4 switches and harness stubs, so I’ll just tap the power from the factory supply for heated seats, which my car was not pre-wired with. I will detail this after I receive my console.
EDIT: No need for special center console, even a base model has the heater switch knockouts. I just knocked-out the blanks.
Power Driver seat w/memory:
The I35 seat has a memory brain (white box). I taped up all wires, and just supplied power to the +12V and Batt (yes there are 2 sources to the box per FSM) and the GND and SIG GND are connected together to Ground. I connected these wires to the power seat harness that was pre-wired into my car, and voila everything works.
Power pass seat:
Plugs right into the stock power seat harness, no mods needed, same connector.
Power seat power:
There is a circuit breaker that needs to be installed in the driver’s side kick panel. Use your FSM to find it. The CB is fed by the power accesories circuit thru a 30A fuse (all Maximas have this circuit, only Max’s with pwr seats will have the additional breaker)
Seat Belt:
Use the old seat belt latches on the new seats. The 5.5’s don’t work on the 4.
Side Airbags:
If your car has the optional side airbags, make sure to do all work with the BATT disconnected. Feel free to hook up the side airbags to your stock SRS system (if so equipped) I am sure the Gen 4 SRS side airbag system will work fine with these seats.
Enjoy the new skins!
Comments are closed.